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CONTINUED ON THIRD PAGE OF COVER. 


THE CONFESSIONS OF A WOMAN 





CONFESSIONS OF A WOMAN 


MABEL (COLLINS.3 




The burden of sad sayings. In that day 

Thou shalt telhall thy days and hours, and tell 
Thy times and ways and words of love, and say 
How one was dear and one desirable, 

And sweet was life to hear and sweet to smell. 

But now with lights reversed the old hours retire^ 
And the last hour is shod with fire from hell. 

This is the end of every man’s desire. 



?;■ 


NEW YORK 

JOHN W. LOVELL COMPANY 

150 WORTH ST., COR. MISSION PLACE 


^ \ 


Copyright, 1890, 

By John W. Lovell Company. 


PREFACE. 


May I be permitted, in one respect, to disarm the 
critics of this sketch, by pointing out that the views 
expressed in it, the theories, and the conclusions arrived 
at, are not in any sense whatever my own. They are 
those of Mrs. Ashton Harcourt : the sad product of a 
sad age, whose mind I have studied and depicted as 
clearly as lies in my power, for the information of such 
readers as may be interested in her. 

Mabel Collins, London, 1890. 



THE 


CONFESSIONS OF A WOMAN. 


CHAPTER I. 

I WONDER if I can interest you, my reader? Perhaps 
you will not be interested in my story, perhaps you will 
not like it ; I do not so much mind that, if I can interest 
you in myself. It is the old craving, the longing for 
sympathy, the hunger to be understood, which has been 
the misery of my life. No one ever has understood 
me ; but now I am going to try and explain myself, to 
put every thought and feeling upon paper. Very likely 
I shall be just as much of an enigma then ; perhaps you 
will not understand me at all. If I understood myself 
doubtless I should no longer find any interest in the 
study of my own character. I am certainly a mystery 
to myself ; the greatest psychological problem in the 
universe. If I could once take a firm grasp of my own 
motives, then I might begin to study other persons. 
But the old philosophers said ** Know thyself,'' and I 
have devoted ten years of thought to the attempt to 
obtain this knowledge, and have not succeeded. I am 
determined now to tell all I know, and possibly some 
one else may put the puzzle together. 


6 THE CONFESSIONS OF A WOMAN. 

I know I am an exceptional woman in some respects ; 
but I am convinced that the great tides of emotion which 
govern my life control the lives of others also. Human 
nature must be similar in its fundamental characteristics ; 
and yet there are some things — articles of faith, of con- 
viction — that have left me forever, and which I once 
thought were the ineradicable possession of all human 
beings. To take one instance : the distinction between 
right and wrong. Do not close the book in a hurry 
when I say this, even you that have that distinction 
marked in your mind most definitely. I do not want 
to shock you ; I want to awake your sympathy. I am 
expressing a cry from my heart, I am telling the fierce 
and terrible truth. I have lost many of my old land- 
marks, and grope round vainly in search of others to 
take their place. There are none. 

When I was a bride my husband found me one day 
reading Epictetus. 

'' If you learn to think,’' he said, you will be 
miserable all your life. Take my advice and refuse to 
think." 

I made no answer. I had begun to think, and nothing 
could stop me. My mind is often abnormally active, 
and wears out my body ; but I cannot help it. If I 
could live in the activity of my mind altogether I should 
not care ; but I cannot. The body recovers, the senses 
awake, and I pass through another phase of experience 
which leaves me yet again in a state of greater mental 
perplexity than before. Then it is that I go back to my 
Epictetus. Stoic philosophy is a holdfast when nothing 


THE CONFESSIONS OF A WOMAN 


7 


else is ; when religion, and metaphysics, idealism and 
emotion, are all exhausted. Exhausted (in my case) 
not from satiety, but thrown aside because they do not 
satisfy. That is the truth of it. I am still young, but I 
feel a thousand years old now, for I am a woman with 
a history, a woman who has lived through a series of 
romances ; and I have never been in love in my life. 
I do not yet know what love is. 

My father died when I was a baby, and I was brought 
up by my dear mother, the tenderest, sweetest, most 
lovable woman that ever lived. She educated me, and 
kept me in the shelter of our country home, so that I 
grew up like a flower, innocent, happy, ignorant. Ah, 
that gay young life of mine, what long ages ago I seem 
to have lived it 1 That halcyon age when I had not 
begun to get puzzled, when life held no difficulties for 
me, when I had not even thought of considering my 
own nature. I learned and accepted as absolutely final 
certain facts which my dear mother impressed on me 
as solid verities. I was taught Christianity, and went 
to church every Sunday with as easy a conscience as the 
birds that built on the church tower. I never imagined 
that there existed for anybody the possibility, or, rather, 
the need of understanding the Athanasian Creed, or the 
doctrine of the Trinity. I was brought up to regard 
marriage as my profession, though of course the idea 
was never expressed in that way. It was conveyed to 
me subtly, poetically even. The innate purity of a 
young girls mind was spoken of before me, as being 
a thing of the highest value, which must be preserved at 


8 


THE CONFESSIONS OF A WOMAN 


any cost. My future was represented to me, indirectly, 
as something very delightful ; I was sure to meet a man 
I should love, and marry him and be happy ever after ; 
and, what is more, be always one of the noble army of 
pure and virtuous women. Oh, those words ! How 
they haunt me now ! They are beautiful words, but do 
they mean anything? /ask you again, and implore you 
not to answer me or yourself hastily — do they mean 
anything? What is that innate purity of a girl's mind, 
which her husband can sweep away in one week of 
intimate association ? Is it purity, or is it, after all, 
only ignorance ? I have come to think so ; but I may 
be wrong. When I was a girl my opinions were as 
solid as rocks, and could not be shaken ; now, alas, I 
alter them very often. 

But, though I have been through mire, and touched 
pitch, I believe my mind to be as pure, in the absolute 
sense, as it ever was. How that is to be reconciled 
with the fact that I have lost the power of distinguishing 
between right and wrong, I cannot tell you. 

Two great passions have dominated my life ; one is 
for art, the other the craving to be loved, to know what 
love is. No doubt I am a sensuous creature ; if I were 
not, I could not take the place as an artist that I do. 
People often say that allowances must be made for 
people with genius ; that they are different from the 
rest of the world. It is certain that I possess some of 
the divine afflatus ; if I had not been able to rush into 
creation when experience sickened me, I could not have 
lived till now in this arid world. Phases of creation 


THE CONFESSIONS OF A WOMAN g 

and of experience sweep over me successively ; I can- 
not both live myself and make something else live. It 
is because I am experiencing now, living my own life, 
that I have time to write all this down. My studio is 
dim and gloomy ; I sit by the flickering fire and write. 

I am not used to writing, and shall probably tell my 
story very badly ; but I mean to tell it now I have 
begun. I have lived very much in the world, among 
people ; I have tried to unravel the puzzle of life from 
studying human nature. Now I do not go into the 
world but feed upon my solitary thoughts. I think I 
am learning a little now, looking back. Yet I doubt 
it ! Ah, me, how tired I am of trying to learn ! It is that, 
I think, which makes me so lonely. I had forgotten to 
say that yet, but it is one of the most visible features of 
my life. I stand utterly alone in the world. No one 
really knows anything of my life ; no one really knows 
why I suffer or why I am glad. Is everyone so lonely 
I wonder? They do not seem so, when I talk to them. 
With women whose lives have been sad or tragic there 
is generally some gleam of comfort, some interest which 
fills their days, some duties that must be attended to : a 
helpless child, an old mother, a sick husband. Many 
people habitually talk of illness as an affliction ! Such 
people must lead the most superficial lives. To those 
who have suffered, and continue to suffer, an illness is 
like a boon. My own severe illnesses, as I look back 
on them, seem like places of deep rest ; while I was on 
the verge of the grave it did not matter at all that I 
could not tell right from wrong, I was free from the 


lO 


THE CONFESSIONS OF A WOMAN 


cease.ess sense of responsibility which has never left 
me, when conscious, since the unlucky day when I 
began to think. 

When I was sixteen I had my first lover ; a lover 
whom I never listened to, and yet he left an indelible 
mark on my life. How happy I was in my ignorant, 
upspringing youth, before he ever spoke to me ! I had 
my passionate dreams of art then to live for ; my love 
of nature to make me always gay. My mother would 
have been horror-stricken could she have guessed that 
I should ever become a professional artist, as I am 
now, for she belonged to the old school which admitted 
none but fireside virtues and domestic capacities for 
women. But she had also the old school admiration 
for ‘^accomplishments.'’ I was taught everything that 
girls are supposed to learn. I cared for nothing but 
reading and painting. I had plenty of books, but they 
were selected so as not to disturb the purity of my mind. 
I gathered from the books I read, among other errone- 
ous impressions, the fixed idea that love between a 
man and a woman is an eternal fact ; that, once exist- 
ing, it must always exist, not only through time but 
beyond it. If I had not been given quite so lofty an 
ideal of life, I could not have suffered quite so much 
ft’om disillusionment. I put forward this suggestion 
very timidly. But I cannot help pitying from my 
very heart girls I see educated in the same way- 
Because they look for something which can never be 
found Marriage means to them disillusionment and 
often despair. If they did not look for anything ideal 


THE CONFESSIONS OF A WOMAN, 


II 


in the man they are to marry, or the life they are tc 
lead with him, the disappointment would be much 
less. I am glad I have no children ; if I had a 
daughter to educate I should be torn to pieces with 
doubt about this question. 

As I was allowed to read, so I was allowed to paint ; 
that is, as much as I liked within certain limits. My 
passion was for the human face and form ; but I could 
only get village children as models, and soon grew tired 
of them. So I fell back upon the inevitable landscape 
sketching, which left my heart empty. I never could 
paint landscape. All I learned from my masters at this 
time was how to mix colors. 

This first lover of mine, of whom I just spoke, was 
an amateur artist of great ability. He lived near us in 
a beautiful old house known as ‘‘ The Court.'’ It was 
the most artistic, charming place, full of beauty and with 
grounds about it that I loved dearly. Its owner, Paul 
Phayre, was a man of about thirty, a bachelor with- 
out any near relations. My mother liked him to visit 
us, and help me understand my work, as he did, im- 
mensely. I feel sure now that she saw his passion 
from the first, and would have been glad for me to 
marry him. For he was rich, of good family, and a true 
gentleman. I don’t know why he had never married, 
unless it was the truth he told me : that he had never 
loved before. I did not think much of the statement at the 
time, because it annoyed me very much that he should 
love me. I had delighted in him as a friend ; but I did 
not want a lover — especially one so terribly in earnest as 


12 


THE CONFESSIONS OF A WOMAN 


he was. I understood none of his feelings then ; but I 
have suffered now, and know something, and when I 
look back my heart aches for Paul. I can see plainly the 
blank, bitter, hopeless look there was on his face when 
I shrank from him. I have very often been called 
heartless since, by men who could not understand me ; 
that was the only time in my life when I deserved the 
word. I was heartless from sheer ignorance. Paul, 
as I know now, had suffered from the pain that has 
always been mine ; from the emptiness of life ; the lack 
of interest. Poor fellow, his intense passion for me had 
come to his heart like rain on parched ground. It had 
given him something to hope for and live in. It was 
all swept away from him by my almost indignant rejec- 
tion. When I had spoken he looked long at me, but 
said no more. He had always likened me to a lily ; 
and he used to call me Lily, so that my mother picked 
it up, and I have been called by it ever since. He gave 
me the name because I was so tall and straight, be- 
cause my face was so colorless, looking waxen white 
in the frame of my black hair. I was beautiful then ; 
my beauty is not beauty in my eyes now, nor do I 
think it is so to others. My appearance is so remark- 
able that people think I must be beautiful because I 
attract so much attention. But that is not the reason. I 
have a magnetic power which attracts persons to me. 
I am sure of that. It is most often used unconsciously ; 
but I can use it at will also. Persons who are preju- 
diced against me yield to it in time. As to my beau- 
ty ! — I am sick of the sad white face, the great, hungry. 


THE CONFESSIONS OF A WOMAN 


13 


intensely black eyes, the heavy masses of hair I see in 
the glass. But when Paul asked me to be his wife I 
was indeed as lovely as a lily. 

I refused him, as I say, almost indignantly. For I 
felt as if he was wilfully spoiling our happy friendship 
by such silly ideas. Ah, me, the profound, bottomless 
ignorance of a girl of sixteen — such a girl as I was — 
I could not measure his love, or gauge his character ! 
I threw away a priceless gift without a thought ! I 
fancy now that with Paul lay the only chance of happi- 
ness that has ever come to me in my life. I might, 
perhaps, if I had married him, have gone through the 
world untroubled, untormented, a happy wife and 
mother, with my religion and ethics all remaining as 
firm as they were then. Could this have been possible ? 
Do circumstances make us, or do we make circum- 
stances } This brings one round to the weary old ques- 
tion of fate and freewill ! Well, I think character makes 
circumstances ; it has been so with me. And yet I 
have been dogged by a resolute Nemesis, followed by 
fate. Can I believe in fate.? Can I be a fatalist? No, 
because I can mould my own future, elevate my life, 
purify my atmosphere. If I did not believe that, I 
could not go on. 

But at that time I only obeyed my impulses and feel- 
ings, without attempting to analyze or check them. I 
sent Paul away with a look of agony in his eyes, and I 
myself was very cross all the rest of the day — chiefly 
because I missed his companionship. He left the court 
almost immediately and went to Paris, where he had a 


14 


THE CONFESSIONS OF A WOMAN, 


pied a terre. I believe he lived there for the next three 
months. At the end of that time a letter came from him 
to me. I shall never forget the storm of conflicting 
emotions that letter roused in me. I had never 
dreamed, in my hitherto peaceful life, that it was possi- 
ble to feel so acutely, to be so bewildered by feeling. 
It was the first awaking of my nature, and it seemed to 
utterly throw me off my balance. I lost my first land- 
mark then ; a superficial one, certainly, but still a land- 
mark. I had always supposed that beautiful girls went 
through life loftily, retaining an ideal calm, however 
much their knights might suffer. And here was I sud- 
denly in a whirlpool of feeling because of a letter from 
a rejected lover. 

But he was dying ; that was some excuse for me. 
Paul was dying ; he had only a day or two to live ; and 
he implored me with such fervor as a man might use 
towards a saint, to come to him and let his eyes rest on 
my face once again before they closed forever. Who 
could resist such an appeal } Not I. People have told 
me since that it must have been pure, foolish Quixotism 
which guided my actions then. Perhaps so ; I fancy I 
am something of a Don Quixote in petticoats, I have 
raved against the injustice which is done in this world 
ever since I have lived in it, and it has all come to little 
else but tilting at windmills. 

Paul's letter brought a certain fact into prominence 
which had never been recognized before. I had a much 
stronger will than my mother, though I had never 
guessed it. The impulsive Don Quixotism of my nature 


THE CONFESSIONS OF A WOMAN. 


15 

was roused by this letter ; I declared that I must and 
would go to Paul, and carried matters with so high a 
hand that, in spite of my mother's doubts and hesita- 
tions, we started for Paris that same day. 

Poor Paul, I don't know to this hour what he died of, 
for no one told me at the time, and I must own I was 
too startled by the evident presence of death to ask any 
questions or feel any curiosity. The only thing I re- 
alized was that Paul, who had for so long been a fact 
in nature to me, a true, kindly, trusted friend, was be- 
ing blotted out from the canvas of life. He was far 
gone when we reached him, and only had brief inter- 
vals of consciousness, though it was not till three days 
later that he died. 

It was on the afternoon of the third day after our arri- 
val. We were in the small salon from which his bed- 
room opened, when the doctor came out very softly, 
his eyes a little dimmed. 

‘'It is over," he said. 

I burst out into a fit of sobbing that was like laughter. 
I saw him look at me with a horrified expression. 

‘ ‘Oh, child, don't laugh like that," said my poor mother. 

“Let me go in to him, " I exclaimed trying to pass 
the doctor who had paused on the threshold of the cham- 
ber of death. 

“Never ! " he answered authoritatively, carried away 
by sudden anger. “You shall not go in to laugh at 
• him as he lies there dead. Heartless, cruel coquette 
that you are. A broken heart had much to do with Paul 
Phayre's death ; I understand it now, if he had given it 


1 6 the confessions of a woman. 

to you. Well, you have got all you wish ; all he had is 
yours, and you are not troubled with him.'' 

My mother came between us, white and trembling. 
‘‘Oh, doctor, " she exclaimed, “don't speak like that to 
her ! She has not heard anything about what he has left 
her, and she is such a child she doesn't know the mean- 
ing of death. " 

“A child, indeed," muttered the doctor, “ I should 
call her a full-fledged jilt." 

I fixed my eyes on him in paralyzed amazement. 
What did he mean } It was not till long afterwards that 
I realized how my girlish coquetry had led Paul to think 
I loved him. He had never blamed me, knowing my 
ignorance, but his delirious ravings had left a strange 
impression on the doctor's mind. Perhaps this strange 
impression, so far from the truth, so unjust, as it seemed 
to me, was after all the just and true. Perhaps this doc- 
tor who had judged me second-hand, uninfluenced by 
my personal presence, had judged me rightly. I have 
studied the Indian philosophies, since then, in the course 
of my desultory reading ; and I have often thought they 
must be correct in describing everything phenomenal as 
illusion. How like a dream, how horribly unreal, actual 
life is sometimes, wh*en one is living in the fierce action 
of brain or heart. It was so then ; the doctor, with his 
harsh words, seemed to me like a phantom talking folly ; 
while I was living in a reality — the overwhelming sense 
had come to me now that he was dead, of how intensely 
Paul Phayre had loved me. A broken heart ! Was it 
possible } Had I broken his heart } Who can tell > I 
gannot. 


THE CONFESSIONS OF A WOMAN 


17 


CHAPTER 11. 

The paroxysm of emotion which I passed through 
seemed to bring me in contact with Pauls very self. I 
awoke from the swoon in a quite different state of mind ; 
I seemed to realize and know the passionate, fervid love 
which Paul had felt for me. I longed to feel it myself, 
and to mourn for him as for a dead loved one. But I 
could not ; my heart was empty of anything but grief 
that he should have felt so much and so cruelly. 
From that moment the idea of love became a passion 
in my life. I wanted to feel it, I wanted to know it — 
I wanted to understand it. 

Oh, the folly of our desires ! This one took hold of 
me, and led me to do things which otherwise I should 
never have thought of doing. When I had recovered 
sufficiently, my mother told me that Paul had left me 
everything — his fortune, the Court, and all in it ; even 
the rings from his fingers he had put into her hands to 
give to me. He had told her of his will, and begged her 
not to refuse the bequest or let me do so ; that he had 
no relative he cared for, and that it would make him 
happy to leave me independent of all circumstances or 
‘ misfortunes. ‘‘For,'’ he said to my mother, “ there 
is more passion than peace for my Lily ; she is as pure 
as the driven snow, but she has the brain of a man, and 


2 


1 8 THE CONFESSIONS OF A WOMAN 

none can tell where this may lead her or how she may 
be misunderstood. I should like to leave her all the 
help I can to face the world with.’' 

I have thought very often — perhaps every day — of 
that speech since my mother told it me. It was enig- 
matic to me then ; I understand it now, and know that 
Paul more nearly comprehended my character than 
anyone else has ever done. And I have often thought 
how unworldly that speech showed him to be; and 
how fond and foolish my mother showed herself to be 
in yielding to his wish. 

When we came back from Paris and took possession 
of the Court we found ourselves boycotted. Our old 
friends and neighbors looked the other way when we 
met them in the street ; the county people, who always 
had regarded the owner of the Court as a person of 
importance, looked through us with eye-glass or pince- 
nez, without seeing us. My poor mother turned white 
every time this happened. At last she spoke out. 

never thought it would be so bad as this,” she 
said. ''Of course I knew they would all suppose you 
had been engaged to Paul, but I never thought of any- 
thing worse. I suppose it is that wretched affair of 
our going to him in Paris.” 

I looked at her in complete amazement and bewilder- 
ment. I had not the smallest idea of what she meant. 
Meeting my perplexed gaze she said, "Think nothing 
about it, Lily ; it doesn’t matter. ” And I soon forgot 
the puzzle. In this case it is certain that ignorance 
was bliss, I was in an unhappj^ state/ wondering 


THE CONFESSIONS OF A WOMAN 


19 

what were the mysteries of life that lay before me ; a 
state common enough to girls on the brink of woman- 
hood. But I kept down this vague distress by a fierce 
phase of work which carried me through a long, quiet 
winter, during which we saw no visitors at all. I used 
Paul’s painting room, which was admirably lighted and 
fitted ; and when my mother came to look on at my 
painting we used often to talk of Paul, in low, hushed 
voices. We had little else to think of, so shut in and 
secluded were our lives. I painted my visions during 
those months ; the pictures (if so one may call them) 
still stand against the wall in the studio. It is curious to 
look at them and remember what I was when I painted 
them ; how self-absorbed, how full of idealism and 
dreams and Quixotic fancies. When the spring came I 
saw my mother wear a very serious face. She did not tell 
me till afterwards that she had several times found me in 
a profound swoon, with a chill dew on my face. When 
I awoke I invariably said that I had seen Paul, and 
had tried to follow him where he went. This alarmed 
her so much that she determined I should be got away 
from the Court for some time ; and after much hesita- 
tion decided on doing what she had intended to leave 
for a year later — taking me to London and ‘‘bringing 
me out.” I learned later on that she was a little cow- 
ardly about it, and had wished for delay because she 
dreaded the scandal about me following us into London 
^ society. Of course it did, though I did not even un- 
derstand what it was until much later. 

I was not sorry to leave the Court for a time, for 


20 CONFESSION^ OF A WOMaN. 

our life had grown very monotonous. My mother had 
a younger sister who had married a Scotch laird, and 
lived with him the greater part of the year in their 
highland fastnesses. She had no girls, her two children 
were boys. She was young and gay, from my mother’s 
point of view, who always professed herself perplexed 
as to why Agatha should come to London every May 
and stay there till the end of June, going out to dinners 
and crushes every night that she did not receive in her 
own house. I was the god-child of Agatha, Lady 
McCleod, and was called Agatha after her. But no one, 
after Paul Phayre called me Lily, ever used my proper 
name ; and I never used it as a signature except in 
business matters. To return — my mother wrote to 
Aunt Agatha and arranged that we should live together 
in London for the season ; and that Aunt Agatha should 
present me at Court and ‘‘bring me out,’' a proposal 
which delighted my dear, gay, society-loving aunt, 
who would have been charmed to have had daughters to 
take about. Aunt Agatha has been a staunch friend of 
mine always, from then till now ; she has been the 
nearest woman-friend I have ever had. She has lived 
in the same house with me ; travelled with me, seen 
me constantly ever since my first season ; and she has 
never known anything at all about my life. It has all 
been lived aside from her, out of her knowledge. I 
could not help it ; I detest concealment ; I simply 
could not speak to her in my real troubles any more 
than I could have spoken to a child. Hers was what 
I suppose people mean when they speak of a pure 


THE CONFESSIONS OF A WOMAN. 


21 


nature ; she never thought about anything, never 
doubted anything. The creed she had learned as a 
child, the code of ethics she had been taught, have 
lasted unaltered to this hour, and have satisfied her 
fully. It has been very bitter to me, knowing how 
little I was like what she believed me to be, to be in 
her society and accept her sincere affection. Scan- 
dal has been talked about me ever since that first 
season — and Agatha, as I always called her — for we 
got to be more like sisters than aunt and niece — never 
believed in any of it (until a terrible day came that 
separated us forever) and she always defended me. 
One day she said to me believe in you as I believe 
in heaven.'' The words cut me to the heart; I won- 
dered — was she equally deceived in both.? For I am 
distinctly not good, according to her simple code of 
ethics. 

The odd thing about my life is that the scandal talked 
about me has always been quite unfounded. This 
seems odd to me, but I fancy it is a not unknown expe- 
rience with others. As for me, I have done things and 
felt things which the people who know me would never 
believe me capable of ; that I suppose, is just the rea- 
son why they accused me of something else. For in 
this world it appears that a woman cannot become 
noticeable in any way without being held guilty of some 
crime or vice. 

We went to town, and found Lady McCleod already 
arrived, full of high spirits and happiness, and with a 
lovely flush of health on her face. 


22 


THE CONFESSIONS OF A WOMAN 


‘‘Upon my word, Agatha,'" said my mother. “You 
look ridiculously young. Just imagine if you had a 
couple of grown-up girls, like Lily here, to take about 
with you." 

“Oh, I should delight in it ! I should never play 
the mother, but just be like a sister to them. That’s 
what I mean to be to Lily, who looks graver already 
than I have ever felt — and, dear me ! she is half a head 
taller than I am. I assure you we can’t put this girl 
into a trivial tulle-eind-snowdrop presentation dress ; 
she ought to wear cloth of silver. What a stately 
creature it is. " 

“ Don’t turn her head," said my mother severely. 
“You are as frivolous as ever, Agatha." 

“ And always shall be," cried Lady McCleod, and 
hurried away to “look after things. " 

“ When is your husband coming } " asked my mother, 
as she was at the door. 

“Oh, Sandy '11 conie sometime, and show himself 
about with me ; but Sandy hates London, and I really 
don't admire heather, so we agree to differ — that's why 
we're so jolly — " and with that she vanished. It was 
quite true. There never was a happier couple than 
these two; just as I was born to live out a succession 
of tragedies, so they were born to go gayly through the 
world like two merry children. Has my character 
created the tragedy for me — or circumstances } — I don't 
know — I cannot disentangle the two. It is fate and 
freewill again ! the old hopeless puzzle. I have a theory 
of my own about fate and freewill, but I daren't advance 


THE CONFESSIONS OF A WOMAN. 


23 

it yet, lest you should think I am too fond of metaphys- 
ics. I am only metaphysical now and again ; I must 
explain how I think of things, just as I must speak of 
my art-work sometimes, or else my story would never 
be intelligible. But what I am endeavoring to disen- 
tangle from the medley of my life is the history of my 
heart ; and I shall not touch on anything else except 
incidentally, 

I did have a cloth-of-silver presentation dress, made 
all soft and beautiful at its edges with white ostrich 
feathering. It was more like a bride's presentation dress 
than a young girl's ; but the great milliner we went to 
immediately said the same as Aunt Agatha. 

‘‘She must be dressed magnificently," was the fiat, 
“or else I don't care to dress her at all. Her statuesque 
figure and unusual face will bear nothing else ; and if 
you will take my advice," this to my mother, “ you will 
never let her wear anything but the richest materials." 

When I tried on my splendid dress I thought of 
Esmond’s Trix, and felt something like her too. Al- 
ready the rebellion that burned in her heart was burn- 
ing in mine ; for the first unjust, unfounded slander 
about me, that which associated me with Paul Phayre, 
had met me here in London. It filled me with anger 
and shame ; yes, I was ashamed then, of a thing I had 
not done ! I have never been really ashamed of any- 
thing since, either that I have done or have been sup- 
posed to have done — I have only felt curiosity and 
wonder. Did I wear out my capacity for shame in that 
early pain which I suffered so undeservedly? or is 


24 


The confessions of a woman 


there no such thing as shame at all — is it, when looked 
in the face, only hurt vanity and anger because others 
despise one? — that is all I have ever discovered in my 
own heart even looking back upon these early days. 

I hardly believe in shame ; I do not see how a person 
can be ashamed of an action. He may not want others 
to know it, because their standard is different from 
his, and they may cry shame on him — but perhaps you 
will say I am making a distinction without showing a 
difference. 

I was certainly ashamed then, of what I had not 
done; my pride rebelled furiously against my being 
talked of, when I was so ignorant that I could not even 
guess what was said. If purity is ignorance I was 
pure then — why did not the world leave me alone, in- 
stead of repeating idle slander, and forcing me to face 
it with effrontery ? Why do I ask such foolish ques- 
tions? There is no justice in this world. Some of us 
escape “punishment'' to use a horsey word ; but who 
can guess why those escape who do ? The problem is 
insoluble, because it is as evident right through the 
animal kingdom as in human life. Why should one 
carriage-horse be punished by the bearing-reins and 
another not? What was that some one very great and 
holy — even if only legendary, still a great and holy 
figure — said about the sparrows ? I wish I could be- 
lieve it. I love horses, and I see them unjustly ill-used 
every day. Why are the Whitechapel ruffians allowed 
to snare our precious wild birds to sell to the milliners ? 
Oh, these endless questions I could ask 1 What is the 


THE CONFESSIONS OF A WOMAN. 


25 

use of asking them when there is none to answer? I 
have been asking all my life, and have never found any 
answer. 

A young horse's temper may be spoiled for life by 
the first groom that rides him. I entered upon life with 
the spur driven into me so that the blood sprang, and 
the bit cutting my mouth. Because I had behaved to 
Paul as I thought a friend ought, and because, in his 
unworldliness, he had thought to benefit me by his 
fortune, I was stamped, at seventeen, as a girl with a 
story — '^Something queer,'* Ah, but I was ashamed 
then — bitterly ashamed! 


26 


the confessions of a woman 


CHAPTER III. 

I CREATED a furore that season ; I had crowds of 
admirers who followed me every where, surrounded me, 
waited on me, listened to my foolish words as if I were 
an oracle. I soon acquired a bitter way of speaking, 
which, in so young a girl, passed for wit ; and I was 
full of headstrong opinions. I said just what came into 
my head, caring only to attract attention and eclipse 
my rivals. I succeeded very well ; the newspapers 
got wind of my social successes, and I used to see my 
dresses described, and see myself called the beauty of 
the season. My rivals, who envied me and looked on 
longingly when I paraded my army of adorers before 
their eyes, got “ married and settled'' one by one, and 
I got never an offer ! 

I do not think with my mother and aunt Agatha that 
this was wholly due to the fact that I was supposed to 
have ‘‘a story." Everyone knows now that I have a 
story, yet it does not seem to frighten my admirers. 
I have no plausible theory to offer, except that, though 
men seem to like clever women, they do not like clever 
girls. There is no doubt that clever women are a 
fashion of this particular age, both in France and Eng- 
land, In America the clever girl is quite as great a 


THE CONFESSIONS OF A WOMAN 


27 

favorite. But she sees the world, and is not crude like 
the English girl. I was terribly crude, and very embit- 
tered; and exhibited my faults with the headstrong 
violence of a child. I have more energy than most 
people, and it was unchastened then. Whatever the 
reason was, no one proposed to me; and I used to 
hear my mother and aunt Agatha discuss the fact, 
which embittered me more and more. For they were 
quite agreed that it was the scandal about Paul which 
frightened the men off. I believed them, and I cannot 
decide now, whether they were right or wrong ; but i1 
is certain that believing them laid the foundations of 
my pessimism. I looked on society as my enemy ; I 
went into it with an air of insolence, and acquired an 
‘ ' aloofness of manner which I have never been able 
to conquer since. Well, the season was over, and my 
mother and aunt made no secret of their deep disap- 
pointment. With my appearance, they said, I ought 
to have married a Duke ; there was a young unmarried 
Duke at that time on whom they had fixed their expect- 
ant eyes. But he did not mean to marry anybody till 
he had fully had his fling. I met him a little while ago, 
here in Paris, where I am writing, and he told me 
laughingly that he did not really feel he had had his 
fling yet. So my chances were small there, in spite of 
the fact that he and I were fond of each other s society. 
But I could not make my duennas see this : they 
actually talked about his having jilted me, which made 
me very angry indeed. 

We had accepted a number of country-houae invita- 


28 


THE CONFESSIONS OF A WOMAN 


tions for the late summer and autumn ; and at the very 
first country-house we visited I met my fate. I see no 
reason why I should not use that conventional phrase, 
because, think over it how I will, it really does seem to 
me that I was fated to marry Ashton Harcourt. 

The oriental philosophies introduce the idea of 
reincarnation into all their theories of life, and the idea 
pleases me, because it offers plausible explanations of 
otherwise most perplexing facts. 

If one accepts the idea it is necessary also to accept 
another, which is simply that actions in a previous ex- 
istence produce effects in ones present life. This idea 
has been familiarized to English novel-readers by the 
Theosophists, Mr.Sinnett having even called one of his 
novels by the Sanskrit word for it — Karina. I have never 
been able to learn much as to the way in which Karina 
is supposed to work, but the idea pleases my fancy, as 
a just possible explanation of otherwise inexplicable 
situations. Why was it (for instance) that when I sat 
down to the dinner table at Harleton House, and saw 
Ashton Harcourt sitting opposite me, did it seem as 
though I had known him always, was quite intimate 
and familiar with himself and his character ? Why also 
did it suddenly flash into my memory that I had seen 
this man in dreams at intervals all through my life } Why 
was it that I said to myself ‘‘I believe I shall marry that 
man ? These things were so : that is all I can say. If 
re-incarnations and Karina are facts, I suppose Ashton 
Harcourt and I had either hated or loved each other very 


THE CONFESSIONS OF A WOMAN 


29 

intensely in a previous life — whether it had been hate 
or love I cannot guess. 

Ashton fell in love with me at first sight I must beg 
my reader not to laugh at me when I say that Ashton 
was a man who always did fall in love at first sight. For 
Ashton's loves were many, though of course I did not 
know that till long afterwards. But out of these many 
loves only two seriously affected his life ; his passion for 
me, and his passion for a woman who was my opposite 
in everything. 

He could not take his eyes from me all the evening ; 
he came early to the drawing-room after dinner, got in- 
troduced to me and resolutely kept the place by my side. 
Ashton had a fierce will, and he always acted on 
impulse. He determined, in the first five minutes of our 
acquaintance, that I should be his wife. There is noth- 
ing extraordinary in this ; some men delight in rushing 
upon unknown countries of experience in this way. My 
father decided in exactly the same manner about my 
mother, and carried his day, as did Ashton. 

He was a tall, deep-chested strong man, with a long soft 
brown beard, and eyes that changed in color from gray 
to green. He was not good-looking, but he was a strik- 
ing figure, and he had the most perfect manners. He 
was quite one of the best known and most popular men in 
society, considering that he took no share in politics or 
anything else, in fact never did anything but amuse him- 
self and other people. He had a great faculty for creat- 
ing a bright, cheerful atmosphere, and people liked him 
for this. He did it to please himself because he disliked 


THE CONFESSIONS OF A WOMAN. 


30 

anything serious or dull — synonymous words to him. 

That night I woke trembling, and with a cold dew on 
my forehead. Little wonder— for by the dim light in the 
room I saw a figure standing a few yards off looking at 
me. That figure was myself, wrapped in the white 
dressing-gown that I had thrown off as 1 got into bed. 
I succeeded in moving my eyes to the chair on which 
I had thrown my gown ; it was not there. It was no 
hallucination, the figure stood there, actually dressed in 
the gown. I suppose it was a dream, but it made an 
impression on my life, such as an actual fact would make. 
What did it mean } I wondered and puzzled all night 
long. Oh, the blessed morning, when my mother's maid 
came in and drew up the blind and brought me some tea ! 
I was prostrated, and lay wearily in bed without energy 
to move, or even answer my mother’s anxious questions. 

In the afternoon a letter was brought to me ! It was 
from Ashton. I have not got it ; I have long since 
burned every scrap of his writing I possessed. I can- 
not remember it all. He told me he had heard I should 
not leave my room that day, and that he could not en- 
dure the suspense ; that he must write and tell me how he 
had fallen in love with me at first sight ; that he had had 
the strangest dream in the night, in which he had seen 
me and spoken to me, and that in his dream he had 
taken my hand, and woke to feel my hand actually in 
his ; that he implored me to decide his fate at once ; that 
it was hardly necessary to say he had plenty of money 
and a good position ; that he would devote himself to 
making my life happy and so on^ and so on. I supposq 


THE CONFESSIONS OF A WOMAN 


31 

every man has written such a letter, and every woman 
received one, at some time in their lives. 

I let it lie on my bed till my mother came in, and 
then gave it her to read. It was a very passionate 
effusion, but it had no sacredness for me. 

‘‘What are you going to do?^' asked my mother 
tentatively and with suppressed anxiety. 

“ I am going to say ‘yes," "" I replied quietly, and it 
seemed to me as I spoke that I again saw my own 
figure standing regarding me, and that it said to me, 
“You are going to say ‘ yes." "" 

“Oh, my dear, my dear, I am so thankful!’" said 
my mother, bursting into tears, “It is a magnificent 
match. Everybody has tried to catch him 1 Oh my 
dear, it is a triumph, indeed ! "" 

She could not have been more pleased if it had been 
that hapless little sot and rake, the Duke I have just 
mentioned. I think she was more pleased, for it seems 
Ashton was a much coveted “eligible."" I lay and looked 
at her in dull wonder. How far we were apart ! The 
Atlantic would not have separated us more effectually 
than our different habits of thought did. 

That is the one grudge I bear my dead mother. 
Now that she is gone from me I ought to forgive her 
entirely ; yet I cannot forgive her letting me marry 
Ashton. She ought to have saved me from myself. As 
for me, I was in one of those strange conditions which 
needs a strange theory to account for it — such an one as 
I have just advanced. Asked by an ordinary matter- 
of-fact person why I married Ashton Harcourt, I should 


THE CONFESSIONS OF A WOMAN 


32 

be compelled to say that I had not the least idea, except 
that I gave in to his wish to marry me. I was certainly 
not in love with him, nor did I even fancy myself so. 
I simply succumbed comfortably to his passion for 
me. 

And what a passion it was ! There was something 
fine about it, after all, while it was at its height. He 
was a lover of the robust school. Nothing would in- 
duce him to agree to wait more than three months for 
our marriage ; and during those three months he was 
with me all day long. 

I gave myself up wholly and completely to the ex- 
perience I was going through. I never went into my 
studio, I let everything go but the bond between myself 
and Ashton. He was thirty years old, a man of great 
experience, who had been everywhere and seen every- 
thing ; his great vitality and vigor, combined with the 
subtle gentleness of his manner, made him a most fasci- 
nating companion. I gladly became absorbed into his 
life, into his passion, into his atmosphere. It was like 
new life to me. I believed and hoped I was on the verge 
of the great experience I longed for, of feeling in myself 
a great passion. But I was not. I was never in love 
with AshtcKi for a moment. And yet I was quite happy 
with him, because I loved his love for me, and lived on 
it. Those observers of human life who say that the 
woman loves the man’s desire for her, certainly speak 
truth. What I cannot even yet discover is whether 
they speak the whole truth — whether woman is really 
in herself incapable of passion, of initiating. There 


THE CONFESSIONS OF A WOMAN 


33 


is no doubt that she can knowingly cause passion to 
come to life in a man over whom she has any power ; 
but I have doubts as to whether she can call it to life in 
herself. I am inclined to think she can, if she can put 
away the idea of conquest, and let her own nature 
assert itself. 

My mother knew Ashton Harcourt's character ; she 
knew facts about him that I never learned until three 
years later, and yet she let me marry him without a 
word of warning. She let me go to him perfectly inno- 
cent, because an absolutely ignorant girl ; a romantic, 
high-spirited, enthusiastic girl, with an entirely ideal 
standard of life and conception of love. 

I can never understand how any mother could do 
this. But I see mothers do it continually. I call it a 
crime, a thing to be really ashamed of My poor 
mother ! that I should write down such things about 
her ! I cannot help it — I am determined to tell the 
truth ; and I sicken now when I think of how she let 
me go. 

I was very happy during my brief engagement. 
Ashton gave me the full charm of his delightful social 
qualities, and his passion was so strong that I felt its 
vibrations, and a faint flush would sometimes rise in 
my pale face from the intensity of his feelings. I be- 
came devoted to him ; I put him in the place of my 
mother, of my dead father, I think of God himself 
For I certainly forgot my religion with everything else. 
Ashton was a contented agnostic ; therefore so was I. 


3 


the confessions of a woman. 


34 

For I was happy in regarding him as perfect, in looking 
upon his word as law. 

He was not only my lover, he was my all. 

My all ! yes, that was the folly of it. We were mar- 
ried on a beautiful June day, in a fashionable London 
church, the air of which was heavy with the scent of 
flowers and of essences. Society came in full force 
and the presence of two royal personages made ours 
the most noticeable wedding of the season. 

When I had taken off my gorgeous trappings of 
white silk and lace, and laid aside the Harcourt dia- 
monds which had covered half the front of my bodice, 
and gleamed in my dark hair, I begged to be left quite 
alone to put on my travelling dress. I had a kind of 
feeling that I should never be alone again for five 
minutes. I was quite right ; I never was while Ashton 
loved me. For his love was distinctly possessive. 

I crept down quietly, when I was ready, to where 
my mother was waiting for me. She had been called 
away, and I had to pass alone through some of the 
guests, who were thronging in the hall to see us off. 
People were talking so busily and merrily they did not 
notice or make way forme ; and as I passed, hesitating 
which way to turn, I overheard a piece of dialogue 
between two men close beside me. 

“Did you ever hear anything so scandalous as that 
Herries woman forcing herself into that church } said 
one. 

“I don’t know her by sight,” said the other, “are 
you sure she was there ? ” 


THE CONFESSIONS OF A IVOMAN. 


35 

Oh, yes, I could see her plainly, and so did a lot 
of people. Harcourt saw her, and turned as white as 
a sheet I declare I thought there was going to be a 
scene.'' 

‘‘Awfully hard on the poor girl ! " 

‘ ‘ What, the bride Oh, shameful. And what a beauty 
she is. So's the old love, for the matter of that, 
though they are different as chalk and cheese ! 'Pon 
my word, Harcourt's got an eye for beauty — and isn't 
he lucky with the women, too ! " 

I moved away quietly, so that they did not see me. 
I went over what they had said, but could make no 
sense of it. We were no sooner alone in the carriage 
than I asked Ashton who the “Herries woman" was 
that I heard people talking of. He changed color 
visibly, but said at once that he did not know. Then 
he immediately began to talk to me about other things 
and carried me into the fool's Paradise where I dwelt 
with him. 

His was a passion that scorched with its intensity, 
that took the whole life of the woman he loved. The 
very strength of it, and the fact that its fierceness cut 
away all my other links, destroyed all my other inter- 
ests, made me cling to him, and believe in him the 
more. My own life and individuality, my art, my own 
thoughts and feelings, were for the time lost sight of. 
I knew what it was to “suffer love." 


36 


THE CONFESSIONS OF A WOMAN, 


CHAPTER IV. 

A fool's paradise ! Yes, because I made a vital mis- 
take. I knew I did not love him, but I thought he 
loved me — because he told me so ! How could any 
girl so ignorant as I was imagine that he did not mean 
what he said.? It takes all the experience of a woman 
of the world and some power of reasoning, to know that 
when men talk in this way they talk for the moment, 
and the moment only. Oh, why did Ashton marry 
me ? He never should have married any woman. He 
scorched and burned me and left my heart waste. 

Now, my reader, I am going to present you with a 
picture which perhaps has not been given you in words 
before; at all events not by a woman. Yet who but a 
woman should doit? Looking back, with the help of 
the experience I have gathered since, I can see very 
clearly the situation as it was. Ashton Harcourt was a 
profligate, a roue, and not one who had sown his wild 
oats, but one who must always be sowing them. He 
was in love with me — he made love to me as he had 
made love a hundred times before. His breath burned 
me ; to be near him seemed like being consumed in a 
fire ; and he drew me to him and held me tight in his 
arms. I struggled for a moment with all my natural 


THE CONFESSIONS OF WOMAN 


37 

pride, and full of fierce indignation. Suddenly I re- 
membered — this was Ashton, my husband ! Oh ! how 
unlike my dream of love, this actual passion. I repeat, 
I was an ignorant and romantic girl. I do not excuse 
myself, but I cannot blame myself. How many igno- 
rant and foolish girls are married in this way ? I allow 
that some know the world — and something of the men 
that make it — before they marry ; and for my part I 
think they are the fortunate ones. They at least do not 
suffer as I did. At last I could bear it no longer, and 
with all my strength pushed Ashton from me. I was 
like a young panther. My God ! " exclaimed Ashton 
as he looked into my face which grew whiter and more 
waxen with rage. Your eyes are like blazing stars. 
Don't push me away, child — you will drive me mad.'^ 
We were still in the carriage : yes, I have not got 
beyond that — and now, as I sit here so quiet, I can feel 
again the fierce beatings of my heart. For the first and 
last time in my life I was frightened. Surely there 
should be a temple in every country to which such 
women as I was could be sworn as vestals. Mine was 
the virginal temperament, and 1 never had imagined 
that it must be fought down and killed and destroyed 
by this passionate lover of my body whom the church 
had made my husband. I was never a follower of any 
religion, because of my awkward tendency to ask un- 
answerable questions. I never could accept a doctrine 
which was merely asserted. I have been told that I 
ought to have been educated for science because I am 
always wanting proof. Still I had had a respect for the 


38 the confessions of a woman 

church in which I had been brought up ; a kind of 
lingering feeling that ‘'my pastors and masters” must 
be right. But I took a perhaps unreasonable hatred 
for the church which had married me, on this day. It 
kept recurring to my mind — the scene, the bouquets, 
the pretty dresses, the flower-decked altar, the music, 
the Bishop, the Rector, the Curate. They had made 
genuflexions — but was it possible, I said to myself, that 
they had actually done anything to change Ashton from 
the gentle, kind, chivalrous lover into the man that 
now again held me in his arms and pressed me to him 
— oh, it was not possible ! How little men understand 
women ! The men who most think they know us are 
the most ignorant. Ashton was what is called success- 
ful with women. Men such as he was always fancy 
they understand us ! They never know how we shrink 
from that enmity which Byron declared to be a neces- 
sary part of love. Apparently it is so to a man with 
whom love means passion. With us there is a longing 
for tender touches and magnetic kisses ; endearments 
which simulate love at all events. "Affect a delicatesse, 
e’en if you have it not,” is my advice to profligates. 
It may be difficult for them, for they grow rougher, it 
seems, as the years go by. But let them remember 
that women awaken and recognize their own powers as 
the years go by. It is the desire, not for fierce excite- 
ment, but for the subtleties of sensation which make 
the modern Lesbias and Sapphos — doubtless the same 
cause has always produced the same effect. For the 
world does not alter ! — it only swings on, and civiliza- 


THE CONFESSIONS OF A WOMAN. 


39 

tion rises and falls, the utmost corruption existing when 
the development is highest. 

I was like a white lily torn from its stalk by a drunken 
reveller, and crushed in his hand. It sounds a very 
fanciful simile to use for myself; but as a matter of fact 
it is mere prose. I felt like that ; I shrank from this 
fierce passion, and suddenly a kind of hatred for Ashton 
sprang up in my mind. This hatred terrified me — I 
began to fancy I must be wicked indeed — a thing I had 
often been told but never had believed before. We had 
reached Victoria and it was when Ashton handed me 
out of the carriage that this conviction became suddenly 
forced on me. For he almost lifted me out — it was only 
momentary but it was enough ! Yes, I hated him. 

I had made Ashton pledge himself beforehand not to 
have a locked carriage ; I had such a horror of adver- 
tising to all the world the fact that we were newly 
married. He kept to his promise ; I learned afterwards 
he was actually afraid to break it or else he would have 
done so. I would not wear a new dress in spite of my 
mother s and Aunt Agatha's entreaties ; not I, indeed ! 
I was too proud. I resolutely got into a carriage where 
there were other people and looked out of the window. 
How vexed Ashton was ! But I wanted time to recover 
myself and think. Think ! I found my head swimming 
— for, ah, the journey was so short. It came to an end 
and we were quickly driven to an hotel where rooms 
were engaged for us for that night. We were to cross 
by next day's boat. 

A sudden savagery had taken possession of me ; I 


THE CONFEBStONS OF A WOMAN, 


40 

determined to assume accustomed airs and to wear none 
of the timidity of a bride. I rang the bell and ordered 
tea. It was ready and came instantly. I was longing 
for it — my head ached — I was tired and thirsty — yester- 
day Ashton would have brought it me and waited on 
me. But I was his wife now ! 

"^Confound the tea ! he exclaimed, and suddenly 
caught me in his arms. I was so angry all power 
deserted me — I was numbed — but a moment later I 
found strength to free myself, and hurried into my 
room, where my maid was unpacking. 

Ashton ordered her out of the room. 

How dare you ! '' I exclaimed — but I might as well 
have talked to the sun at midday and bid it not shine. 


THE CONFESSIONS OF A WOMAN 


41 


CHAPTER V. 

And that is how, from not loving my husband, I 
came to nate him. 

I conquered the hatred afterwards, as I thought ; for 
his passion burned into me. But it was always latent, 
even in my most submissive moments. 

Yes, submissive ; for every day that passed after 
this made my life more of a submission to his. Of 
course I did not understand him; but then how should 
I ? It was all inevitable. I am a fatalist now. If I 
had been a woman of the world, or of any experience, 
I could have ruled Ashton by right of his passion, and 
I could have fed it. But as it was he ruled me by right 
of it. I was not a woman ; I was a child. 

From the day of my marriage I began to slowly but 
surely alter my views of life. The world took on a 
totally different color. This was due to my husband's 
mental and moral influence over me. Some men delight 
in taking an ignorant mind and revealing to it the dark 
side of life — the vice of the world, to use the accepted 
expression. I am grown too confused now to be able 
to use the word myself honestly in its usual sense. I 
have known women capable of telling lies from inter- 
ested motives, who led what are called absolutely vir- 
tuous lives. I have known perfectly honest and truthful 


42 the CONEESSIONS of a troMAH. 

persons who were considered vicious. To my mind 
truth is a moral virtue, and therefore of incomparably 
higher value than any physical virtue. Lord Welter, 
in Ravenshoey is a blackguard, always drinking and 
dicing and brawling ; but he is transformed into a mag- 
nificent figure by the great occasion on which he told 
the truth. He might have said nothing, and no one 
would have blamed him ; but this bully and ruffian 
was not to be so subtly tempted. His mind was 
simple and his conscience too ; he knew he must tell 
the truth. 

I don't regret having made this digression here, be- 
cause it is very necessary to explain that truth is a form 
of virtue which I clearly understand to be virtuous. 
Nothing has ever altered my original conviction about 
that. Will anything alter it Perhaps. I cannot tell. 
I have suffered such changes I may yet suffer more. 
But I still cling to my love of truth. It may be only a 
love — I know not. But my devotion has cost me dear. 

Ashton had certain rules of conduct, whether natural 
or artificial I know not, which helped greatly to 
make him the charming companion he was, and also 
to make life brighter. He never tyrannized in little 
things — he carried the manners of society into every- 
day life. He never contradicted, or argued, or laid 
down the law. He would never have influenced my 
thoughts as he did if he had resorted to any rough-and- 
ready methods in conversation. But by the gentlest 
means, the most natural, the softest, he steadily destroyed 
that quality in my mind which is usually called purity ; 


THE CONFESSIONS OF A WOMAN. 


43 

which now I call ignorance. He darkened the world 
for me; he showed it to me full of vice, hypocrisy, 
shame. He told me things about his friends, about 
our mutual friends, which made me shrink from them 
with a horror I found it difficult to conceal sometimes. 
I felt as if I had lost my way and was wandering 
about in a society of criminals. Ashton himself was 
my one refuge ; for he never made any confessions, or 
threw any light on himself ; and believing I knew him 
thoroughly, I preferred to be alone with him to being 
in any other society. But I found at last that I was 
no nearer loving him than I had been at first ; my heart 
was empty. Only that his love for me was an inces- 
sant occupation I might have despaired. As it was I 
began to believe that my dream of love was an impos- 
sible one, like my dream of virtue. Marriage had de- 
stroyed both, and I more and more resolutely gave 
myself up to Ashton, giving him my very self as com- 
pletely as I could, submitting entirely to his pleasure. I 
thought then I was fulfilling an almost sacred duty ; from 
my present point of view, it seems to me, looking back, 
that the three years of my married life were positively 
immoral. Yes, three years ; it only lasted three years. 
During that time I had no life of my own ; I lived simply 
in being loved. Some women live like this all their lives 
and believe themselves to be following a high calling. 
For me it lasted only this short time ; but I lived it so 
utterly, so intensely, that I believed in it as a posi- 
tive finality. I never dreamed but that it would last 
through time and through eternity. The secret hunger, 


44 the confessions OF A WOMAN, 

unacknowledged by myself, which arose from the 
fact that Ashton could not make me love him, and that 
the latent hatred of the conquered for the conqueror 
lurked within me, at last drove me back to my work. 
I think hard work is the only real anaesthetic for mental 
pain which exists. The opium-eater suffers from re- 
action, whereas real work is stimulating. Six months 
after my marriage I was back in my studio again ! I 
found that I had made immense progress during my 
time of idleness. This is one of the great mysteries 
of life which every true artist encounters ; a phase of 
experience, of downright human living, will sometimes 
lift one up a great way on the ladder of art. I found 
it so. I began to do really good work, and soon be- 
came a frequent exhibitor. Ashton encouraged me ; he 
liked me to be admired and praised. He loved society, 
and we entertained very largely. He was a great fa- 
vorite in the one set which considers itself to be society, 
and I was, if not exactly a favorite, yet a very much 
noticed figure in it. I never found society very inter- 
esting ; I loved to talk of real things, and as I never 
met anyone who cared for such conversation I was 
very silent. But with my rapidly spreading notoriety 
as an artist, a different circle came round me. Artists 
of all kinds and all countries wished to know me ; I 
had a public position as well as a social one. To meet 
this fresh development Ashton inaugurated studio even- 
ings. Very few members of society so-called appeared 
on those nights, but a number of interesting people 
came, people that I found it possible to talk to. I sup- 


THE CONFESSIONS OF A WOMAN 


45 


pose it was about eighteen months after my marriage 
that Svenski came to London and came to see me. He 
was in the full flush of a great reputation ; he was a 
Pole, and the Polish people regarded him as one might 
a cherished aloe bloom — his greatness was to them a 
flowering of the nation. He was truly great — he is 
truly great, for death has not taken him yet from my 
unpeopled horizon. How well I see him now, entering 
my studio for the first time, coming, as he did, to pay 
his tribute to another artist ! Tall, very slight, at the 
first glance he seemed a fragile creature ; at the next 
you saw immense power and strength hidden behind 
this fragility. The most marked characteristic of his 
face was the inexpressible sadness which always rested 
on it, like a faint cloud, until something interested or 
roused him — then the whole face altered, and such a 
fierce keenness and eagerness came upon it as reminded 
one of a bird of prey rather than of anything else. 

Svenski had come to London because he had been 
asked to exhibit his pictures here ; they were borrowed 
and begged from the various purchasers, and arranged 
in a gallery in Bond Street. They were exhibited there 
for a year, a summer season and a winter season ; and 
during that year Svenski and his wife and his two pretty 
children lived in London. We became very intimate 
with them. Madame Svenski was a bright young 
woman, a true bon camarade, who tried her best to lift 
the cloud of melancholy that hung about SvenskPs life. 
It came from his own character, or some secret chagrin; 
be was a pre-eminently successful man. I always 


46 THE CONFESSIONS OF A WOMAN 

looked upon him as more my husband’s friend than 
mine, for he always came to the house with that air. 
Nevertheless, I fully realize that he was the first person 
I had ever met whom I could freely and openly talk 
to — who caught my thought and threw it back to me 
enlarged or answered. I have never met his equal as a 
talker, because he is a really original thinker, and would 
literally raise a conversation, bringing out suggestions 
that filled one with a breathless mental excitement. 
Yes — let me set it down here, once and for all — Svenski 
is one of the truly great, one who has power to reach 
the golden gates, to climb to the mountain-tops of human 
thought, and look beyond into spiritualities. 

Well, Svenski came and went ; his presence had made 
a great bright spot in my life ; I knew it when he had 
gone. Once, just before he left, I chanced to be alone 
with him a whole long afternoon, and we talked of 
many things which I have never found it possible to 
talk of with any one else. I did not know till much 
later either his feeling, or the impression I produced on 
him. I was very much angered and very much 
astonished when Aunt Agatha said to me, I’m glad 
that man is gone ; he admired you a great deal too 
much.” Such a suggestion made me resentful, for I felt 
myself secure and secluded forever in my devotion to 
Ashton and his constant passion for me. I called my 
submission to him devotion ; the word pleased me. It 
prevented me from disturbing the depths of my nature and 
raising that doubtful darkness which always lies below, 
as Nathaniel Hawthorne says, though not quite in these 


THE CONFESSIONS OF A WOMAN 47 

words. How one can deceive oneself! Could I have 
known that the fever which burned me was anger, I 
should have called my submission immorality as I do 
now. I do not consider that the real dangers of life 
arise from being deceived by others, but from deceiving 
oneself. One does it in all innocence — but, oh, looking 
back, how foolish, how almost criminal it seems 1 One 
fancies one is making another person happy! One 
fancies one is necessary to some loved one ! And all 
the while that person may be feeling your love a fetter. 
These things cannot be life-long ; they are too painful. 
They will out at last, at some great crisis, as with me. 
Ashton's passion for me was like a great bar laid on my 
life, a thing I had bowed myself to. But I never thought 
it out in this way ; my will held my mind from doing 
it. Oh, yes, I knew I hated him ; but after the very 
first battle I had sworn allegiance to my conqueror. So 
do the Poles to the Russians ; the Irish have done so to 
the English. That is all that marriage is. If promises ’ 
are like pie-crust much more so are vows. To swear 
allegiance or faithfulness, to take a pledge of any sort, 
is at once to break it, either in heart or in action. This 
is human nature. For we are chameleons, changing 
every moment. It is possible for a woman, strong and 
resolute, to hold herself in check for many years, be- 
cause she is proud. A woman who keeps her vows is 
proud and conscious of shame. Men are not either in 
these matters ; and when these foolish words ‘‘till death 
do us part "are uttered, everyone knows it means, till 
pleasure brings satiety and change is needful. And this 


48 the confessions of a woman 

is marriage ! a sacrament, a moral institution ! Who so 
restricts himself by a vow of any kind only makes a 
meaningless and useless martyr of himself. For if life 
has any meaning it is gathered by experience, which 
means change. And no man is to-day the same man 
that he was yesterday ; for the most prominent law of 
life is change. 


THE CONFESSIONS OF A WOMAN. 


49 


CHAPTER VI. 

The change came to me ! 

My whole life was changed suddenly — changed as is 
a mass of snow when it melts, or a flame when it is 
quenched. Ashton began to be very often away from me. 
He had not until now even left me for twenty-four 
hours ; and when he did so the first time it seemed 
strange. But I was very absorbed in a picture which I 
believed had more promise in it than anything I had 
hitherto done. I did not think so much of being alone 
more, as I might have, had I been without my work. 
And then Ashton asked Aunt Agatha to come and stay 
in the house. I was a little surprised at his taking the 
initiative, but he did so quite naturally one day when 
she was calling. She seemed to me to have an anxious 
look, but I did not attribute it to anything but that one 
of her boys was ill at school. 

‘‘Would you not like to go to him .? '' I asked her. 

“No,'' she answered ; she felt happier to be with me. 
She used to sit in my studio with her eyes dwelling on 
me. One day I had stood a long time looking at my 
work, when in a sudden passionate longing for 
sympathy I lifted my arms up and exclaimed, “Oh, 
how I wish the door would open and Svenski would 


come m. 


4 


50 


THE CONFESSIONS OF A WOMAN. 


Thank God he is not in London now/' ejaculated 
my aunt. I turned round and stared at her in amaze- 
ment The door did open almost immediately, and a 
servant brought me a telegram from Ashton to say he 
could not be back to dinner, but that he would fetch us 
from the theatre. He had arranged to take us that night 
and dine at home first 

I would not show it, but I was very disappointed and 
disheartened. What did this mean } Ashton used, such 
a little while since, to be always with me, that I could 
not understand or realize the change. But it troubled 
me. I was vexed to be left alone with Agatha when she 
had just said this thing about Svenski — a speech I re- 
sented without understanding it. I became capricious ; 
a mood passed over me as a wave of the sea passes 
over the sand. 

I don't care to go the theatre,” I said. “ I was only 
going to please Ashton. Let us go and hear Patti to-night 
— I have a box. It will be a treat to me, for I could 
never get Ashton to go with me to hear Patti. He does 
not care for her. Fancy not caring for Patti ! I shall 
have a real pleasure — for once.’' 

‘'But Ashton will go to the theatre to look for us," 
said Aunt Agatha, perplexed. 

‘ ‘ Well, " I said impatiently, ' he can wait a few minutes. 
We will drive to the theatre and pick him up. He must 
expect to be kept waiting if he doesn't even let me know 
where he is. '' 

Aunt Agatha looked at me with a distressed, anxious 
expression. No doubt I seomod to her rnore bitter than 


THE confessions OF A WOMAN 51 

I was. In reality, I was only a little piqued, and a little 
bewildered. I did not know that a great chasm lay 
before me — a precipice— what can I call it? No, I did 
not dream of that — yet I knew there was a rift some- 
where — a slit in the garment of simulated happiness in 
which ^ had so long lived. 

Agatha did not attempt to oppose my change of plan. 
We dined together, and then got into the carriage and 
went to hear Patti instead of the pla}. 

My reader, to whom I appeal, you for whom I write 
you only of all the world to whom I can show my 
heart, who can ever understand me — you, the unknown 
— I want you to picture the scene as I entered my box 
that night. Agatha went first : a pretty, well-preserved 
woman of middle age, perfectly dressed and appointed, 
with a sweet bright face, overclouded by a look of 
anxious distress. Behind her I came, as like a lily 
as when Paul Phayre loved me. Tall, slight, with 
a clear white skin untouched by any faintest flush 
of color ; dressed in white, with white diamonds on 
my neck, and white diamonds in my black hair, 
I will tell you even of my eyes, for I have often 
looked at them to see if what men said to me of them 
was true. They were like my hair — black as night, 
with an intensity of expression almost painful, and yet 
strangely attractive ; and long curling black lashes 
standing out separately on each lid, above and below, 
made them startling in effect. I never entered any 
place where people were without every head being 
turned towards me. I did not know what they looked 


52 the confessions of a woman. 

at me for and did not care. I knew Ashton thought me 
the most beautiful woman that had ever stepped the 
earth, or that could be created ; was not that enough } 
As I entered the box, Agatha sank into a chair in front 
of me with a rather surprising suddenness ; but I 
scarcely noticed it. My mind was all taken up by the 
sight of a most beautiful woman who sat in a box just 
opposite me. How glorious she was — sometimes a 
Rubens, the next moment a Dante Rossetti ; with red- 
gold hair and a vivid flush on her fruit-like face that 
came from mantling blood, and a mouth which was 
like that of Daudef s Sappho, the true Cupid’s bow. I 
suppose if I had been a man I should have fallen in 
love with her on the spot. She wore opals on her neck 
— such a neck ! As my eyes travelled down to the 
stones, and the soft curves they adorned, I saw some- 
thing else — my husband’s face. Ashton was sitting 
behind her, leaning forward, so that his face was on a 
level with her shoulder. He seemed transfixed as by 
amazement or some other strong emotion, when he 
saw me ; his eyes were on me and remained so — for 
how long } — seconds or minutes I know not. I leaned 
over Agatha. 

What a beautiful woman Ashton is with ! I must 
know her.” 

Agatha started up as if my words had electrified her, 
took my arm, pushed me out of the box, led me down- 
stairs and sent a commissionaire for the carriage. It is 
not too mnch to say that 1, who had twenty times 


THE CONFESSIONS OF A WOMAN. 


53 

Agatha's decision and will-power, submitted to all this 
like a child, from sheer amazement. 

Why must we go } I said, as we stood waiting for 
the carriage. She made no answer. I looked at her 
face and was silent. I was lost in conjecture. We 
drove home silently, went into the house, and I led the 
way into my studio. I called a servant to light the 
great lights, and then I sat down in front of my picture. 

‘^Now, Agatha, tell me the truth," I said. 

She burst out crying. I had no pity, for I was like a 
stone myself, so cold at heart that my very hands were 
cold. 

‘‘Tell me the truth," I said. 

She stopped crying and threw herself with a kind of 
weary, despairing movement, into a chair at a little dis- 
tance from me. She told me afterwards she longed to 
come and kiss me, but that sitting there so white, my 
eyes gleaming like the diamonds I wore, I was like a 
panther or a savage woman, and made her afraid. 

“ You must know something of it," she said drearily, 
“you know who that brazen-faced woman is?'* 

“If you mean the beautiful woman with Ashton to- 
night, I do not know who she is," 1 answered. 

“She is Mrs. Herries," said Agatha in a dogged 
tone. 

I started at the name. My wedding-day came ba'ck 
to me ; I remembered the gossip I had overheard, and 
Ashton's face when I had asked him who the “ Herries 
woman " was. A flash of intelligence came to me and 
illuminated everything. Ashton had educated me to 


THE CONFESSIONS OF A WOMAN 


54 

some purpose. I spoke out my thoughts, or my con- 
victions, as they came to me. 

“What !” I said, “his old mistress? She came to 
the church to see us married. And he has gone back 
to her? I am too white for him. I do not wonder.'’ 

Agatha sat and looked at me, but said nothing. I 
don’t know whether she thought I was going to faint. 
At that moment the door opened and Ashton came in. 
He looked at me hesitatingly and then came close to 
me. 

“ Forgive me,” he said in a low voice. 

I knitted my brows and tried to think and understand 
what he meant. 

‘ ‘ I have nothing to forgive, ” I said. Y ou are tired of 
me. Of course if you love color you must be tired of 
me. Good-bye, Ashton.” 

I, held out my hand, took his and shook it, and let it 
drop. All the time it appeared to me as if I was dying, 
my heart had such a deathlike pang in it. He looked 
at me, utterly puzzled, and remained standing. 

“Go now,” I said, “I cannot bear this any longer. 
Go back to her. Early to-morrow I will leave this 
house and go to my own ; and you will never be 
troubled by the sight of me again.” 

Agatha sprang from her chair with an exclamation ; 
Ashton came a step nearer and put his hand on rne. 
This roused me — I started up and shook his hand off. 

“No, no, never again,” I said. “I have done with 
you ! ” 

The man changed under my very eyes ; a new man 


THE CONFESSIONS OF A WOMAN 


55 

whom I had never seen, came into my life. His nos- 
trils distended and his breath came quick. 

‘^What!” he said, ^^you, you talk to me like this ! 
What were you when I married you, white enchantress 
that you are I For I love you still and I believe no man 
can ever quite escape from you who has once loved 
you. But I married you, like a very Don Quixote ; I 
will not be reproached and scorned by you too. What 
about Paul Phayre } and what about Svenski } Come, 
be reasonable. You are a woman of the world, and I 
am a man of the world ; neither of us believes in the 
marriage law — have I not heard you call it wicked a 
hundred times.? Well, be it so. I have said no word 
of reproach to you. Be careful what you say to me.'" 

I stood like a statue and looked him in the face. I 
watched him as he spoke, and as I looked and looked 
I knew, knew once for all that this man was a stranger 
to me. I had lived in his love — or his passion — forme ; 
I had never known him. What a revelation ! I stood 
and said nothing. I believe he said more ; I do not 
know ; I heard nothing. I believe Aunt Agatha said a 
great deal — I heard nothing — that she flung her arms 
round me — I felt nothing. I only stood and looked at 
Ashton, and as I did so lived over again all my hours 
of love with him. And it was this man I had been 
with ! not the kind, generous, gentle creature who was 
the man I had fancied myself with, but this man, loll- 
ing there in an armchair, a sneer on his mouth, a cigar 
in his fingers which he forgot to light. This man, with 
the cruel, sensual face, who had never known me, me 


56 the confessions of a woman 

myself, once in all this time ! I stood there, with 
thoughts too bitter for expression passing like wild-fire 
through my brain. I don’t know how late it grew, or 
how long it was before my mother suddenly entered the 
room, pale and trembling. I learned afterwards that 
Agatha had sent for her and insisted on her presence. 
She came up to me, but did not dare touch me. She 
knew me better than the others. For the first time I 
took my eyes off Ashton and looked at her ; yes, this 
was my mother, poor weak soul, who had let me marry 
this profligate. For I cannot tell how, in this long con- 
templation of him I had penetrated Ashton’s character 
and knew him for what he was. She said things to me 
— I do not know what — but at last I found words and 
spoke to her. 

‘‘ It seems,” I said addressing her, that my husband 
believed when he married me that I had been Paul 
Phayre’s mistress } ” 

My mother wrung her hands, and turned to Ashton ; 
he was watching her with a malicious smile and she 
turned away again. 

“ Everyone believed it,” she said ; ‘‘ he never ought to 
have left you that money. ” 

“Everyone believed it I repeated, “And my 
husband has also used M. Svenski’s name in a way I do 
not understand.” 

“ Oh, Lily, Lily,” cried out my mother, “ do not 
take it like this ! You are helpless, indeed! The world 
is so cruel, no one will judge you rightly because of that 
old scandal.” 


THE CONFESSIONS OF A WOMAN 


57 

“Be it so/' I said very quietly — for the great Atlantic 
rollers of rage and indignation had not yet reached the 
shore of my consciousness. “Be it so. I am indiffer- 
ent to the world. My husband has insulted me, but I 
suppose he does not know nor ever has known me. I 
will not wait till to-morrow. I will leave his house to- 
night, and go to my own.’^ 

“To Paul Phayre’s," said Ashton with a sneer. For 
a second my heart jumped with anger ; but I could still 
control it. I seemed to wake again into life ; I moved 
from where I had so long been standing, and went 
towards the door. 

Then followed a scene which I cannot properly de- 
scribe, because I did not hear half of what was said. I 
know my mother clung about my knees at last, kneel- 
ing on the floor herself, and imploring me not to com- 
mit this dreadful indiscretion — to leave my husband ; to 
create a scandal ! to be ostracized as I should be. 

“ For everyone will believe you are in fault," she cried 
through her tears. “ People always think it is the 
woman." 

I raised my head (I had been looking down at her) 
and looked at my husband. He had been, I suppose, 
without my noticing it, to the dining-room and fetched 
some spirit decanters and glasses. At all events he had 
these on a table and I suppose he had been drinking for 
some time. Ashton was a man who drank a great deal 
but I had never seen him the worse for it. What he had 
taken during this scene I cannot tell ; but when I looked 
at him there was an expression on his face which sud- 


THE CONFESSIONS OF A WOMAN 


58 

denly filled me with horror. I daresay Mrs. Herries 
and many other women had seen him look like this ; 
but I never had till now. I raised my arm and pointed 
to him. 

‘ ' Be one of that man's mistresses ? " I cried out. ' ‘ No, 
not however much the sanction of the church may be 
upon it." And I turned and walked out of the room. 

It was dawn ; the night had passed. I went to my 
room and began to undress and to pack. I went on 
quite steadily and methodically, as if I had been used 
to the work all my life. When my maid came in with my 
tea at seven she found me sitting in a travelling dress. 

I am going down to the Court this morning," I said, 
and I wish to catch the eight o'clock train. All my 
things are ready ; get your own ready, and send Simp- 
son at once to the studio to pack everything there. Tell 
him I am going to take the big picture with me." 

Simpson was my studio factotum. He was accus- 
tomed to vagaries and caprices on my part, more so than 
my maid was. All was ready in time, and without 
interference from any living soul we three went to the 
station and caught the train. I believe poor Agatha had 
gone home with my mother, frightened to stay ; as for 
Ashton I imagine he was sleeping off the various scenes 
he had been through, and the brandy he had taken to 
steady himself. For Mrs. Herries had been as deeply 
hurt as I was, and I afterwards heard she thought he had 
planned the whole thing to annoy her. He had fled 
from her indignation to the silent anger of such a woman 
as myself. 


THE CONFESSIONS OF A WOMAN. 


59 


CHAPTER VII. 

Such a woman as myself ! What sort of woman was 
that ? A Quixotic, foolish, romantic, high-strung creat- 
ure, who could not quietly accept the fact that the 
man she had given her life to was made of clay like the 
rest, but must needs fly in the face of the world because 
of her discovery of such a simple thing. No justifiable 
heroine, but an unreasonable woman, hungry for an 
ideal that can never be realized. So I see now, but I 
did not then. The Atlantic rollers came : great fierce 
waves of rage, despair, grief, indignation, which swept 
over me and filled my ears with their sound so that I 
heard nothing else. I believe Agatha and my mother 
both came to me : but I did not see them. I remained 
locked in my studio — Paul's studio. Fortunately, it 
was very large and I could rave to and fro like a 
caged panther. Why had not Paul lived to t^ll the 
truth about me to the world, I asked the walls a thou- 
sand times. I was still deluded, still a fond, fond foolish 
creature, even in the midst of my disillusionment. For 
I have lived to know it is more than possible that if he 
had told the truth he would not have been believed, but 
would have been regarded as perjuring himself as a 
gentleman should ; worse still, that perhaps he would 
have been made to believe other slanders about me 


6 o the confessions of a woman 

and would have refused to tell the truth, or have left 
me as completely alone as I now was. For in the light 
of later experiences I perceive there is nothing reliable ; 
no man, no circumstance, no truth. All is liable to 
change, all is liable to decay. The very truth itself may 
fade from a man's mind and he may see another thing 
in its place. There are no living facts in life ; there is 
nothing but the circumstance of our own individual 
mental attitude at the moment. I used to fancy truth 
and love were living facts. Poor fool ! 

I am talking straightforwardly now, as I have never 
been able to talk before — chiefly, I think, because other 
people had their own ideas and interrupted mine with 
them. My mother’s idea was to keep up appearances ; 
my aunt Agatha’s to be happy, superficially and at any 
cost, and make others happy in the same way. These 
subjects never interested me. I have always wanted 
to know the actual meaning of things. Persons like 
my mother and aunt are always aiming at an ideal which 
is unrealizable. So was I, it is true ; but they never 
surrendered their ideals, while I have surrendered mine. 
All I try to discover now is what things mean. This 
writing of mine will remain in the archives of fiction, 
where so much reality is buried, and be regarded as 
nonsense by indifferent persons. There must surely be 
a science of life formed in course of time, and thinkers 
will exist who will deal with the facts of human living. 
Is there any one in this world who can explain to me 
the dream which so precipitated my union with Ashton } 
Why did I see my own figure, instead of seeing him? 


THE CONFESSIONS OF A WOMAN 6 1 

Had my spirit been to him and invoked his dream and 
invited my fate ? I cannot tell. Why were we attracted 
together, only to be flung so violently apart ? Who can 
tell ? These things happen every day and help to make 
up the sum of human misery — and joy, perhaps — it is 
hard to distinguish, looking back. I am no metaphysi- 
cian, no student of philosophy, save in so far as phil- 
osophy could bring me comfort, but it is very plain 
to me that one's own brain and its working is the actual 
limit of the horizon. There can be nothing beyond 
that, nothing extraneous. And yet the most confirmed 
materialist is compelled to pause sometimes and say 
“how can the working of the brain account for this ? " 
Visions and dreams cannot always be explained away ; 
that is all I can say as I sit here looking into the em- 
bers. But I have lived now ; I should have spoken 
very differently then before 1 had even begun to live. 
I believed in the mysteries of life then ; the beyond, the 
invisible, the ideal. Ah, me, my heart ! Is it men 
that break ones heart, or the miserable conviction they 
force upon one that there is no ideal which can be 
justified by any fact .J* I think the latter. To me 
now, looking back, those I have loved are shadows, 
and their faces blend together, but the bitter lessons 
they have taught me stand out alone, clear, distinct — 
destructive. Yes, destructive of faith, virtue, hope. 
Those words had once a full and vivid meaning for 
me, each of them ; but now they are empty sounds, 
brazen sounds, mere jangling of dull bells. When I 
shut myself up in Paul's studio, and retreated into the 


62 THE CONFESSIONS OF A WOMAN. 

solitude of my own feelings I fancied such a tempest 
of emotion as tore me then must be a thing in a life- 
time, a great event, which would dwarf everything else. 
I imagined that my whole life was swallowed up and 
wrecked in this rage and grief from which I so bitterly 
suffered. It was indeed a fearful ordeal at the time, 
and though I put it back into its proper place now 
among the events of my life, I shudder at the recollec- 
tion of it — shudder, yes, as I sit here. And, strange 
though it may seem, it was not the thought of Ashton's 
treachery, nor is it now : it was then and still is the 
recollection of his touch, his caresses. Since then I 
have lived to learn that a man can love twenty women 
at once, and expects a woman of the world to accept his 
love of the moment for what it is worth ; and she re- 
taliates in kind. But then, child as I was, virginal in 
heart and soul, it was like a knife passed through my 
brain to realize how Ashton had come from his mis- 
tress to me and gone from me to her ; it made my flesh 
cold and drawn, as sudden physical pain does. And 
the thought produces the same effect on me now, as I 
sit here. Well, of course ; a slight accident when one 
is a child will leave a mark for life ; and one may go 
on to the battlefield and stand safe amid the shot after- 
wards. This misery of mine made a deep scar ; a scar 
so deep that when I think of it once more it becomes a 
misery, — I seem to feel again the wound that made the 
scar. And yet I cannot now at all clearly recollect 
Ashton’s face. I have described him, and I could 
describe him again, in that way ; but the look on 


THE CONFESSIONS OF A WOMAN 63 

his face, the glance of his eyes when they fell on 
me, that mysterious look of love which made me quiver 
with its fire, that expression which makes another 
person your own — that has all faded away. It was 
so strong, that though it must often have been given 
to other women besides myself, that thought would not 
drive it back in my memory. It is simply obliter- 
ated, for I have been devoured by other eyes since then, 
which seem to me now more real than his. Perhaps 
I am wrong, and in the moment of death I shall see his 
most vividly. But let me tell you, who are still young 
in life, who have not passed into the maturity, when, 
if one has lived and not only vegetated, one has knowl- 
edge, let me tell you that the first real grief of life is 
indeed the most keen at the moment, but it is not the 
most lasting. It is the blank disappointment which 
comes with later years that makes the days a burden, 
the nights a pain — the sense that there is nothing to 
look for, hope for, cherish. I see myself now, as I look 
back, a glad creature by comparison with what I be- 
came later, and with what I have seen in others ; for I 
was an idealist and as an idealist I fought my pain. 
This gave me the precious sense of superiority, the 
capacity for fierce indignation, and, by degrees, as the 
fever of rage lessened on me, the power to form intense 
resolutions to vow myself to a lofty fate, to look at life 
through a poetic halo and fancy myself a superb 
martyr. 

That was not how the world looked on me I assure 
you. Fortunately for me, I was always proud and 


64 the confessions of a woman 

disdainful ; otherwise I must have suffered bitterly 
indeed from the isolation which marked my existence 
at the Court. For I behaved like a fool — my only 
excuse is that I was an idealist, and that I had never 
learned to look at things from a worldly point of view. 

I emerged from my isolation at last to find my 
mother and Agatha sitting together in sad silence. I 
greeted them with bitter words and drove them from 
me. '‘Why had they ever let me marry that profligate, 
that shameless roue.'' There was no measure to the 
bitter recklessness of my speech. Remember, as some 
excuse, that I was only a child. I had not learned 
that words are always useless. My mother and aunt 
said nothing ; only stood there weeping. Presently my 
mother said “Don't blame her, Agatha ; she has always 
been like this. 

“I don't blame her," said Agatha. “ But I must speak 
now, you know, if you will not. I cannot stay in her 
house any longer, after what she has said to me, 
though I love her ever so dearly ; nor I think can 
even you, her mother. But we must speak. Shall 
I.?" 

“Oh yes, you," said my mother, in a sudden passion 
of tears. “ She will not listen to me. She and I have 
never understood each other." 

I turned on Agatha, wheeling round quickly, with 
some terrible look on my face, I suppose, for she shrank 
a step or two from me. Then with a courage I wonder 
at now, she spoke. 

“Don't you know, dear Lily," she said. “Can't 


THE CONFESSIONS OF A WOMAN. 65 

you understand, dear child, that you will ruin your 
whole life unless you will listen to reason ? 

‘'What do you mean ? I asked; and she shrank 
back another step; but, taking her courage in both hands, 
spoke out plainly. O, these poor, fond women ! I have 
made them suffer as much as others have made me, 
perhaps. It is always the way in this world. We do 
not understand each other. I could not explain myself 
to them nor they to me. There was no common 
ground of understanding or intelligence. 

“ Listen a moment quietly, Lily,’' said Agatha. “It 
is folly to come here and shut yourself away from your 
husband. You know how people talk, and how they 
always blame the woman. What a woman needs is her 
husband’s protection ; if she has even done wrong that 
places her right with the world ; but you, my dear child, 
you, so beautiful and reckless and innocent, you need 
a husband’s protection more than anyone could. 

There was a pause and I think they expected me to 
speak. But my mind had wandered away ; you who 
have suffered enough will know how this happens at the 
bitterest moments. I was thinking of the School for 
Scandal and Joseph Surface’s argument with Lady Teazle. 
Here was my poor aunt using exactly the same argu- 
ment, though she would no doubt have been amazed 
and horror-struck had I told her so. Lady Teazle srif- 
fered from calumny because she was innocent. “It is 
this very conscious innocence that is of the greatest 
prejudice to you.” 

One false step would make her a part of society 


66 THE CONFESSIONS OF A WOMAN 

instead of an isolated atom. I must have been fearfully 
surexitee, for I stood there quite still, while my mind 
went back to an occasion when I had seen Henry Irv- 
ing play Joseph to Adelaide Neilson's Lady Teazle : I 
went over the scene, and thought how little I had un- 
derstood that dialogue and its bitter cynicism when I 
had seen it, sitting as I was in happy faith at Ashton s 
side. The memory of him brought me abruptly to the 
present. Because I was so innocent ! 

''Well I said to Agatha. She went on, but more 
timidly. 

" Don't you see, dear," she said, that young as you 
are and beautiful, not even your mother s protection 
would be sufficient for you, even if you let her stay 
here. It was not sufficient before. You need your 
husband's. You must let him come down here, if you 
wish to stay here ; let him come to and fro. He prom- 
ises he will not annoy you ; that until you can forgive 
him of yourself he will say nothing to trouble you— 
only, to prevent scandal with the servants, you must 
pretend to be on good terms — and there is that great ball 
of Lady Steeple's, you must really go with him to that 
and then all will be right — " 

She stopped, checked, I think, by something in my 
face. I looked slowly from her to my mother. ‘Hs 
this really what you propose to me 1 " I said. 

My mother spoke, apparently encouraged by my 
quiet tone. 

"Here is a letter from Ashton," she said. "It is 
quite humble and kind ; and you know, Lily, it was 


THE CONFESSIONS OF A WOMAN 67 

only that unfortunate public meeting you could com- 
plain of; and that was really your own fault. If you 
would only read it — '' and she held it out to me. 

Then I seem to forget what] I said. At least there 
were a few moments in which I suppose rage took 
hold of me and became such a passion that memory 
refused to follow it. I remember next finding myself 
standing with outstretched arms, and the letter on the 
floor, torn, as by a frenzied creature, into a thousand 
irregular fragments. 

“ If the world you talk of is the world you want me 
to be in," I was saying, “ I would rather be in solitude 
forever ! Liars and hypocrites ! What shelter does an 
innocent woman need.^^ What protection can such a 
man as this give, that is worthy of my acceptance } 
As for Ashton Harcourt I will never see him again so 
long as I live. " 

With these words I swept out of the room and, going 
back to the studio, double-locked the door. I went and 
crouched by a low French window at one side of the 
room, which opened on a balcony. From here I could 
see the lawn and the drive and the great trees that bor- 
dered it and made a stately avenue. From here I had 
the satisfaction presently of seeing my mother and Aunt 
Agatha depart in the station carriage with their maids 
and all their luggage. I watched the carriage until it 
was out of sight, wondering dimly what I had said 
to them to drive them from me like this } Bitter re- 
proaches no doubt, I had heaped upon them. Well, they 
were gone, and I was glad. I was alone, now, with 


68 the confessions of a woman 

my pain, and I was glad of it. I sat there a long while, 
conscious of a kind of relief, in that now no one would 
argue with me, or try to make me understand unintelli- 
gible things. At last I grew cramped and wanted to 
move, and dimly wondered what there was to move for. 
Suddenly, like a flash of electricity, came through my 
brain the recollection of my picture. I dragged my- 
self up from the ground and stood bewildered. I 
remembered that I was not only a neglected wife, a 
woman betrayed, a creature hurt and aggrieved by the 
world, but an artist. Yes ! only a little while ago I 
had been inspired — I stood with my hands to my head 
looking stupidly round the room, for my overtaxed mind 
had again lost the thought of my picture. Then I 
caught sight of the carefully packed canvas standing 
against the wall, and once more the electric thrill struck 
across my misery. I rang for my studio-servant ; and 
then threw myself down in a large easy-chair to watch 
the picture being unpacked. It was freed from its 
wrappings at last and then lifted on to the great easel 
and wheeled round in front of me. What a mysterious 
thing the artist’s frenzy is ! The brain has its work cut 
out to keep up with the impetus of the fever, if indeed 
it is brain and brain only, all that we know and are and 
seem — if matter is the whole. 

‘‘ ’Tis to create, and, in creating, live, 

A being more intense that we endow 
With form, our fancy gaining as we give 
The thing we image, even as I do now. 

What am I ? Nothing. But not so art thou, 

Soul of my thought.’^ 


THE CONFESSIONS OF A WOMAN 69 

My heart had never echoed a Byronic sentiment be- 
fore ; but now these lines stood out in my mind and 
there came the delight of recognizing what had seemed 
a sentiment to be a truth. It is like recognizing a fel- 
low spirit, only that it has none of the inevitable excite- 
ment and disappointment which must follow such a rec- 
ognition. My mind was cleared and cooled for the 
moment, as though ice had been laid on my forehead. 
Over and over again I repeated to myself : — 

“What am I ? Nothing. But not so art thou.’^ 

The poignancy of my pain was dulled by this new 
thought ; my own personality and its wrongs retreated 
from the front of the stage of my thoughts. Between 
that wounded creature and its wounds rose the bright 
dream of my art-work, and then in myself came the 
longing for accomplishment and consummation. I was 
so physically worn out with grief that I could not rise 
from my chair or lift my hand ; I sat as long as daylight 
lasted, looking at the suggestions which were all the 
canvas contained, and seeing the completed picture — no, 
not that, for an artist never sees that ; he sees his ideal 
and so is never satisfied with his work. 

That is just it — that is why a real artist is inevitably 
sad. An ideal cannot be realized. Picture then to 
yourself a young woman such as I was, with an ideal 
not only in art but in life and thought. Ah ! you, mv 
friends, that are ‘‘ idealists '' drag out this shrine from 
your soul and desecrate it, if you can find how to. It 
is not fit for this world you have to live in, and it unfits 


THE CONFESSIONS OF A WOMAN 


70 

you for it. Be warned by me and my shattered life. 
I had been too much of an idealist to be deceived by 
religions and priests ; I had discovered the charlatan of 
necessity hidden under every monkish and priestly 
dress, and detected the dogma that darkens every reli- 
gion and semblance of a religion ; but I was even 
more deeply deceived in men and woman, because I 
had never been able to have any faith in the unknown. 
Virtue and hope remained. Ah, brazen idols, false 
images 1 


THE CONFESSIONS OF A WOMAN. 


71 


CHAPTER VIIL 

From that long fit of thought and abstraction, I fell 
into a deep sleep the first that had come to me since 
I had seen Ashton with Mrs. Herries at the theatre. 
When I awoke from that sleep it seemed as though I 
had awakened from a phase of feeling at the same 
time ; a phase which could never be repeated or enter 
into my life again. But I was mistaken as one so 
often is ; the phase was roused again in me later on, and 
all the suffering had to be experienced over again. 
But for the moment a cord was loosed, a knot untied, 
something in myself was eased. Indeed I never really 
re-lived that phase, for its centre never existed for me 
again. One day of love was over ; that of Ashton 
Harcourt ; I lay still on my bed, when my maid had 
succeeded in taking me to it and undressed me, late in 
the night. I lay there and thought, almost coldly, of 
what I had been through. That man had made me 
suffer I My feeling was contempt for Ashton, and 
for myself because I had cared for him and let him 
make me suffer. I know this was unjust, with the 
injustice that is a vital part of the virginal instinct, j 
I had been true to Ashton, and never dreamed of being j 
anything else, even if I had grown to hate him actively. 

I thought — like a fool, or, in other words, like an 


the confessions of a woman 


72 

idealist — that he ought to have been true to me. Look- 
ing back in the humor I now was I began to fancy I 
had always hated him — how often had I shrunk from 
his kiss, how often had I longed to free myself from his 
grasp ? Once more I remembered a thought of Lord 
Byron's, which it seemed to me now I for the first time 
understood : that there must necessarily be the element 
of hatred as well as of love in the passion which exists 
between a man and a woman. I lay wearily, so wearily, 
there, wondering whether it could really be that this 
was what people called love — this the whole thing ! a 
fever of passion, faithlessness, anger, and then all at an 
end. Was there indeed nothing else to be found in the 
world No other love nearer my ideal .? Then, indeed, 
it would be better to keep to my studio ; to be an artist 
and nothing but an artist, and forget the existence of the 
world of love. Surely it was satiated in me — surely I 
could forget and desire nothing more and think of my 
work alone. And fixing the thought of my picture in 
my mind I grew easier and fell asleep again. It was 
morning when I awoke and saw the sun shining in at 
my window. How I had hated the sun in the last 
terrible phase of my life — how I had looked on it, with 
horror, because it seemed so joyless — now a faint gleam 
of pleasure came to me again as I looked at it, and I 
lay a long while with my eyes fixed on the friendly 
sun-ray. In truth my brain was beginning to recover 
its balance, to return to its natural happy state. Its 
natural happy state ! If happiness is natural why is life 
made up of such wrenchings away of happiness, such 


THE CONFESSIONS OF A WOMAN 


73 

hopeless, desperate clingings to it ? But what is the use 
of asking foolish questions ? I can only say it is an 
old habit of mine which I am trying to cure myself of, 
and that I will ask as few as I can. For a long time 
past I have been merely looking at things, and trying to 
arrange them and see them as they really are. Perhaps 
I have got nearer the truth than most women ; at all 
events I am readier to say what I believe to be true • 
than I have found other women to be. As I lay there, 
looking at the sun-ray, I seemed to pause between two ^ 
lives : the past I saw was indeed the past ; it was | 
over. Yet I had no power to free myself from Ashton J 
Harcourt. I was his wife. That seemed to me to shutp 
down the door of my life, so far as the world went. I, j 
the proud beauty, the rare creature who had been 
always loved, was Mrs Ashton Harcourt, the deserted, 
neglected wife. I saw this, but it did not anger me as 
it had angered me yesterday. I only felt now that I 
was put in a place which did not fit me. I was not 
myself, the artist, free, disassociated from any one. I 
was Mrs. Ashton Harcourt. Oh, marriage, ' how cruel 
that thing is ! ' 

“ Marriage and death and division 
Make barren our lives.” 

Yes, this is true of too many of us. Bright years are 
wasted in a loveless marriage ; and when we have fled 
from it the law holds us still. Out-flee that and where 
shall a woman go? There is no short step for her, no 
half-measures ; she can find no comfort or solace by 
the way, but must fly to “ the chapels, unknown of the 


THE CONFESSIONS OF A WOMAN 


74 

sun,*' where all is forgotten, where oblivion reigns, 
where the face of the world is changed ''in a twilight 
where virtues are vices,'' where there is no memory and 
no dread. I have been there since ; but then I knew 
not such a twilight was, and struggled alone with my 
wound and my bare heart, harassed and troubled by 
I my faith. I had only virtue and hope left ; but they 
are a great deal ; enough to make a buddha, enough to 
destroy and make barren the life of a plain human 
being, unlit by either fire, divine or devilish. 

Hope, still unquenched in my young nature, roused 
me at last, and I got up from my bed and went into 
my studio. Yes, there was my canvas ; and the 
image that should be on it burned in my brain. Surely 
here I could forget I was Mrs. Ashton Harcourt Yes 
— I tried the note in my mind and found that it failed 
to answer. Hope had come to my rescue for the 
moment, and I was the artist. I began to work, and 
steadily and surely the fever seized me, the fever of 
creation, of accomplishment. Oh, what becomes of 
I women who have nothing but love to live for ? None can 
blame them whatever folly may rule their course. And 
men too — do they not suffer from the same great sad- 
ness .? Ah, yes ! though I did not know that then, I 
know it now. For myself I had one great salvation — 
an absorbing thought — a fierce inspiration, which had 
nothing to do with love. And yet in the end I am not 
saved. But then, what is salvation ? — ah, no, that is 
asking a foolish question again. 

I worked on steadily, the fire burning as if it had 


THE CONFESSIONS OF A WOMAN 


75 

never been extinguished, as if no sudden earthquake 
had shaken the world beneath my feet and put me out 
of my place and left me desolate. For the moment I 
could keep the earthquake and its dreadful conse- 
quences out of my mind. When I say for the moment, 

I mean while I was painting that picture. For I 
v/orked at unnatural speed ; my brain and heart were 
on fire, and I leaped at my canvas like a wild thing. 

I could bear no one to enter the room. I locked 
the door on my servants. I must be alone with the 
thing I loved for the time', alone and undisturbed. My 
very self entered that work : it was as though I loved 
it and gave myself to it. I seemed to reach beyond 
the limit of human thought, sometimes, beyond the 
reach of human power. I know I did not; I know 
that it was only my brain in an unusual state of excite- 
ment that produced all these abnormal results. But 
what does it matter, after all, w hat o ne calls inspiration 
It exists , for all artists, aH thinkers. It is of no import- 
ance what we call it. The same mysterious elevation \ 
I of the soul exists also in love — that pale love whose wet 
eyes are darkened at last with the tresses of Dolores. 
That is to me now the awful thing in life ; that all \ 
is hushed, all is darkened that aspires ; greatness is no ' 
better than obscurity, work no more real than idleness,. 
S22^.i^^j?^^^guishable from evil ; andj^ve. thejdqrify- 
mg power, weeps, and succumbs. It is of love that I 
am writing. It is the history of my heart that I am 
ielling ; therefore, I say nothing of my work. I will 
only speak of it as it affected my life. I was shut in 


76 the confessions of a ivoman 

Paul’s studio for three months alone with that canvas ; 
and I put every pang of my heart, every thrill of my 
suffering being upon it. That was a picture to make 
the angels weep ; if there be any angels. White-winged 
creatures such as idealism has taught us to fancy hover 
round us, tender and pure, if any of these were near 
me as I worked they must have made great sobbings 
in the soundless space in which they dwell. But if 
they were there I knew not of them — I was alone with 
my thought and my pain. 

There came a day when my pain seemed dead, and 
I was numb ; when my thought was all worked out ; 
when the brain and the brush had done its utmost. I 
was no longer an artist. I w^as only tired, sick of life, 
of everything. I had forgotten the look of the sunshine 
the smell of the air ; and there was none to draw me to- 
wards them again. I had my picture turned away and 
lay on a couch, with closed eyes. 

Many persons had been to see me ; Ashton had come 
several times. But I was in the fury of creation, and 
would see no one and hear nothing. Now a faint 
wonder as to the other persons who had figured in the 
drama of my life entered my mind. When my maid 
next entered the room I asked her when last there had 
been any visitors. 

''There is a gentleman here now,” she said, rather 
doubtfully. " He is someone you have seen about your 
pictures before. I told him you had been working and 
had seen no one ; but that I thought you had finished. 
He asked me to tell you he was here, and said he would 


THE CONFESSIONS OF A WOMAN 


77 

wait any time. I hope I have not done wrong, madame. 
Here is his card.'' 

The name roused me. It was that of a great picture- 
dealer. 

Ask him to come up here," I said, and rose from my 
couch. When Mr. Harburton entered the room he 
started visibly ; and for the first time it occurred to me 
that my appearance must be very much altered. 

He murmured a few common places, and then asked 
if I had not been painting a picture. 

“Yes," I said “It is there." 

“May I turn it round he asked. 

“ Certainly," I answered. He turned the big easel 
to the light and stood before it in silence. After a long 
time he came and sat down in a chair near me. 

“This will establish you as a great artist immedi- 
ately,'’ he said in a quiet voice, “and will stand for pos- 
terity, whatever else you do. I tell you this, because I 
know it is true, and I doubt if you are in a condition to 
judge the merit of your work. Now will you trust me 
with it for the moment I am sure you do not care to 
go into business arrangements at present ; but you know 
me well enough to let me act for you. I should like to 
take that back to town with me, and put it alone in one 
of my galleries in Bond Street. It ought to be shown 
for the rest of this winter season, and all through the 
next summer season. After that it may have to travel ; 
but I think not." 

“ Take it with you ! " I said, my mind retaining only 
one thing out of all he said. “ But it is not dry yet." 


78 the confessions of a IVOMAN. 

“Oh, I will pack it safely ! '' he exclaimed. “Trust 
me, no one shall touch it but myself. Have I your per- 
mission ? '' 

“ Oh, yes,'' I answered apathetically. He set to 
work at once, only letting my servant hand him what he 
wanted. He packed the picture himself, and soon he 
was gone and the picture too. I hardly realized what 
had taken place. I did not miss the picture, for I had 
ceased to have any desire to look at it. I had done it. 
The creation was gone, had passed out of my life. 

After sitting still a long while in that strange, vacant 
mental state which only those who have suffered mental 
anguish know of, I suddenly remembered Mr. Har- 
burton's start when he first saw me ; I got up and walked 
slowly into another room where there was a beautiful 
Psyche mirror. 

Was this indeed myself? Where was the grand 
creature, the proud beauty that I had been used to see 
reflected in the mirror ? This woman I saw was like a 
soul but now escaped from hell, newly loosed on the 
healthy earth, and with the lambent fires of torture still 
burning in her eyes. With a gesture of horror I turned 
away from the glass and went back to my couch. 

I sank now into a condition like that of a sick child. 
I was so exhausted that I knew nothing and thought of 
nothing. I lay clasping a great soft silk cushion beneath 
me, as you will see a tired child do ; I held it for the 
sake of its faint comfort, and often fell asleep or into 
long fits of unconsciousness — I hardly know which — 
perhaps sometimes the one and sometimes the other. 


THE CONFESSIONS OF A WOMAN 


79 

One day I opened my eyes and saw my mother stand- 
ing by me ; my lids drooped, and when I lifted them 
again she was gone. I suppose she was afraid of my 
bitterness and my harsh words. I am sure I do not 
wonder. Indignation is so useless, and it only makes 
life harder. I can see that now, but I could not then. 
The Sermon on the Mount has always seemed to me full 
of the most admirable worldly wisdom : a business man 
would do well if he could conduct himself always ac- 
cording to its precepts. And its climax is that cynical ^ 
piece of advice, Resist not evil.'' I see it now, only 
too plainly. My anger against evil was only a waste of 
myself, it did but exhaust me; and what use was it.^ 
For our Father which art in Heaven, maketh his sun to 
rise on the evil and on the good, and sendeth rain on 
the just and on the unjust. 

“ Thou shalt live, until evil be slain 
And good shall die first — ” 

So my thoughts wander now, from the words of a 
great preacher to those of a latter-day poet. Good and 
evil ! How have I struggled with these ideas and en- 
deavored to restrain them ! But experience of the world ^ 
destroys them, and the typically pure preacher grants 
that the personal God whom he established for his fol- 
lowers certainly sends rain and sun alike for the evil and 
the good ; while our last poetic thinker strikes a deeper, 
sadder note when he says, Good shall die first." But j 
both recognize the same fact, that good and evil are but | 
forces in the world, not indications of the divine or the i 
devil in man ; blind forces, like the north wind and the 


8o 


THE CONFESSIONS OF A WOMAN 


south wind, like the ebb and flow of the sea. The force 
of the wind or the wave passes over us, and leaves its 
mark. Can we make the north wind come from the 
south.? ‘‘Resist not evil.’' What a maxim! Had I 
learned it early I would not have become the torn and 
miserable creature that I did. But I had not begun to 
read intelligently then. 

I fancy I was very ill. I have no recollection further 
than of hazy, misty days, and burning, feverish nights, 
and strange thoughts that haunted me and seemed like 
living beings. But I must have been very ill, fori was 
told at a later day that my mother was dead ; and they 
would not have kept her illness or death from me if I 
had not been very ill myself. 

A moment came at last when I was not parched, when 
I saw the room I lay in plainly, and once more under- 
stood who I was. In fact I had recovered, I was well 
again. Only I was so weak I could not long keep my 
eyes open. 

A month later and I was in the garden, made pleasant 
by the first signs of spring. I had learned that my mother 
was dead ; Agatha had come to tell me, and had left 
again in a day, for one of her boys was ill, and she 
could not leave him. Otherwise, I believe she would 
have stayed with me whatever I might have said or 
done ; for she was evidently frightened by my appear- 
ance and the apathy with which I heard the story of my 
mother’s death. I was very selfish ; people who believe 
themselves to be good generally are ; and my chief 
thought was a kind of pity for myself, and then a kind 


THE CONFESSIONS OF A WOMAN 8 1 

of gladness, in that I was now so absolutely alone in the 
world. I was glad Agatha had to go, and that she had 
ties, else she might have clung to me; and I wanted no 
affection, I wanted to be alone with my despair, and 
nurse my wrongs, and think of evil as a thing apart 
from myself which I, the perfected, could resist. Oh, i 
yes, that is what the good do, who read their Bibles I 
Who can resist evil ? The ascetic, the aspirant to virtue 
falls before it, because he lets it enter his nobler nature 
and crush that. Who shall escape the north wind ? Not 
the one who stands on the mountain tops. 

I was full of virtue, and of anger. I had exhausted 
hope in my picture. That reminds me to record here 
that Aunt Agatha had told me some other things which 
would have surprised me had I been in any less apathe- 
tic condition. How my picture had been the talk of 
Europe ; and not only was the gallery always crowded 
with ordinary picture-seers, but great artists had 
travelled specially to London to see it ; that the nation 
wished to buy it, and were waiting my answer. Well,'' 

I thought as I listened wearily, “I have worked and 
that is enough ; I need not rouse myself to work any 
more." This brought me a profound sense of consola- 
tion ; for now all I needed was to be still. Agatha left 
me a number of newspapers, to show that she had only 
spoken the truth ; and this spring morning that I spoke 
of just now I had asked for them, and sitting idly in 
the garden turned them over ; yes, it was all true. But 
glancing indifferently over the pages my eyes fell on a 
paragraph in a society journal which seemed suddenly 
to blot out the sunshine. 


82 the confessions of a woman 

‘‘The notorious Mrs. Ashton Harcourt, who left her 
husband under such extraordinary circumstances lately, 
has proved herself a genius of the first water. It is too 
much to expect an artist as great as this to obey the 
conventionalities of life ; and though there has been 
more than one scandal about this lady, commencing 
with a most romantic one in her early youth, everything 
must be forgiven and forgotten in the presence of such 
power. Mrs. Grundy, however; is likely to have a word 
or two to say on the subject in the future ; and she is 
not an appreciator of the arts.'' 

I dropped all the newspapers on the gravel-path be- 
side me and tried to think. Of course this was only 
what I had to expect, and what my mother and Agatha 
had tried to shield me from. I had behaved like an 
idealist, like a quixotic fool, and I must pay the penalty 
for tilting at windmills. But I could not understand this 
then ; I could not think like this then. I was in just the 
opposite condition. I sat blindly trying to grasp the 
fact that I — who was innocent — was “ the notorious 
Mrs. Ashton Harcourt." The effort passed, for I was 
too weak to sustain it ; and I leaned back in my chair. 
The vacant reverie fell on me, which is in reality the 
salvation of a tortured brain. I turned my head from 
side to side looking at the garden and the trees and sky, 
more in wonder than with any other feeling. Suddenly 
I noticed a man approaching me along the gravel walk. 
There was something familiar about him, but at first it 
had no meaning for me. Then all at once I recognized 
Svenski. 


THE CONFESSIONS OF A WOMAN. 


83 


CHAPTER IX. 

SvENSKi came towards me slowly, his tall figure lean- 
ing a little towards me as if something drew him. 
When within a few steps of me he stopped and looked 
into my face. His eyes narrowed as he looked. I 
heard him murmur a word and only just caught it — 
‘ ‘ pauvre. ” 

‘‘I need no pity,"' I cried out. ‘‘Have you come 
here to pity me } ” 

His eyes opened and the pupils dilated as if before a 
light 

“ My God, no ! ” he exclaimed “ the great woman is 
here as the great artist is in your picture. You are not 
dead ! Thank the dear God for that. '' 

“Dead.?'' I repeated, bewildered. He laughed — a 
light laugh that seemed to hurt me. 

“ Oh, I knew your body was alive," he answered, or 
I should not have come here. But yourself — the Lily — 
the strong thing, the upstanding flower — it is not 
crushed. When I first saw you, before your eyes 
gleamed like that, I feared it was. Let me speak." 

“Speak on," I replied, my eyes still on his, trying to 
fathom his meaning. 

“ I have come to England to see your picture ; only 
for that. When I saw it, and saw what they said of it 


24 


THE CONFESSIONS OF A WOMAN. 


was true, I knew I must come to you. Do not push 
me back, do not repel me ; remember I have no one 
else in the world to look to but you.” 

I cannot understand you,” I said, rising to my feet. 
There was something in his atmosphere, his magnetism 
— well, what shall I say — in his brain, that weighed on 
me. 

^'Come inside,” I said, after a second’s pause. I rec- 
ognized that I had something strange and unfamiliar 
to cope with, and I feared I might faint, I was still so 
weak. I suddenly felt I had better be within reach of 
other help than his. 

I walked a few steps down the path and went in at 
the window of my little morning-room. It was shaded 
and pleasant ; my easy-chair was in its accustomed 
corner whence I could reach the bell without moving. 
I sat down here, and he brought a chair close to me. 

I have heard,” he said, of all your strange story. 
I have heard strange things about you too ; but they do 
not concern me. I know^o^^ / and no ale-house tales 
or drawing-room scandals affect me. Ah, my dear 
one, why did you clip your wings by marrying that 
man ? I never could understand it. Let him go, let 
him spend his time in his own society, where there is 
no meaning, nor any sense spoken. Forget him.” 

'^He is forgotten,” I answered very quietly, out of 
the fancied strength of my own soul. 

‘‘Ah, then, come to me, come to me! Think how 
strong we shall be, we two together I None can touch 
us, none can come near us ! Our thoughts, our dreams. 


THE CONFESSIONS OF A WOMAN. 85 

our hopes — one ! How often have I looked into your 
eyes and thought of what might have been ! — but now 
there is time. Then I believed all was ended — that 
there was no hope, that it would all come too late. 
But we have years of life and of work left — my proud 
Lily, the purest and proudest woman I ever saw, let me 
gather you. I am more worthy to than any other man, 
if only by right of my work, for I stand nearest to you 
— and so I am not ashamed to ask it. What a boon to 
ask — but, no, I am not ashamed. I am small, I am 
little by your side ; but I must ask and you must give. 
I want you, you, the proud Lily ; I must have you ! 

I sat still, and made no answer. I Was cold, spell- 
bound, a woman chained by an ideal. I did not call 
his words an insult in my own mind, because I recog- 
nized that they were real ; that the whole man was 
speaking to me, without calculation, aild merely out of 
his sense that I was free. But the force of his emotion 
broke upon me as the waves of the sea break upon a 
rock. I was marble. He put his hand on mine as it 
lay on the arm of the chair ; and drew it away again of 
himself, startled by the insensibility he encountered. 

''My God!’' he exclaimed, "have I hurt you or 
wounded you, that you treat me like this? Forgive 
me, forgive me. I would never have come near you 
to break upon your solitude had I not seen, or fancied 
I saw, long ago, a light in your eyes that answered to 
mine. May Heaven have pity on me if it was only 
fancy ! It will break my heart. But it cannot be so. 
Ah, remember, my Lily, how often I have touched 


86 the confessions of a woman 

your nand and looked into your fathomless eyes, and 
gone silently away. It was bitter, it was hard, but I 
did it ; it was necessary. The laws of social life would 
have made it an insult for me to speak to you then ; 
but not now. Now you will let me speak.'' He knelt 
down by my side as he said this, and put his arms 
round me. Tell me," he said, in an intense whisper 
that sounded louder to me than any cry, tell me I am 
not utterly wrong ! Don't kill me by this silence ! 
Why do you sit there, like a statue. Are you insensible } 
Is it so } " 

He drew back a little to look into my face, and in 
doing so dropped one hand upon my arm. He caught 
and clutched it ; and the fire from his touch suddenly 
roused me. 

‘‘What is it you want of me.'^" I asked, enabled at 
last to speak. For I really believe I was ice and he 
was flame ; and I might have lapsed into a cold un- 
consciousness but for the heat of his touch. Now I 
was aroused. I could feel the warmth of his whole self, 
like a cloud or a vapor that came from him to me and 
enveloped me — oh, how near he was 1 How faint I 
was ! I pushed him a little away from me — as far as I 
could, but he was very strong and not in the humor to 
be lightly moved from the position we had taken up, 
physically and emotionally. Ah, what a cruel rock a 
man can be when he loves. 

“What do I want of you?" he said in his fierce 
whisper that seemed to pierce my brain. ‘ ‘ What should 
I want of you but yourself. I doubt if you can love 


THE CONFESSIONS OF A WOMAN. 87 

me — noi now, at all events, when you are so broken — 
I will not think of that. But let me have you — have 
you to comfort, to help, to be my own utterly, body 
and soul — let me heal you and bring back life again to 
those pale lips and weary eyes. Come away with me 
— leave this horrible country — come away with me to 
Italy, to Greece, to some old land where the dead at 
least knew how to live, and have made the soil warm 
with the passion of past ages. Come ! — I will give my 
life to you and wrap you round so that no hurt can ever 
come near you — 

His voice died away and he remained, his eyes 
gleaming as they looked into mine. I could no longer 
endure his close presence, for at last I was beginning 
to understand him. I rose and stood clinging to the 
mantel-shelf, while he remained at my feet, just 
holding a fold of my dress lightly in his hand. 

‘‘Your wife — your children — I said. 

“Ah, let them go he exclaimed, “they have all 
they need. In God's name I pray you do not think of 
these things, things of every day. We live but once, 
and that for but a short while ; let us snatch the drops 
of manna that come to us ; only once does love come 
to any man or woman. My Lily, it has come to us — 
can you refuse me ? " 

He stood up suddenly, and towered over me, though 
I am a tall woman. But oh, how strong he was, and 
how slight I. And yet my untaught will broke forth 
and conquered, my strong Quixotism asserted its right 
to wreck my happiness. 


88 the confessions of a woman 

‘^Never !” I cried out. Never will I spoil the life 
of another woman, as a woman has spoiled mine 1 
That is the one infamy, because it is cruel. Go back 
to her to whom you owe allegiance — go back — go 
back I '' 

I turned and faced him full as I said this. He looked 
me in the eyes steadily and turned very pale. It seemed 
to me quite a long time that we stood like this. His 
eyes held mine, narrowed, opened, narrowed again, 
seemed to strive to fathom mine, or else to learn some- 
thing from them, with an intensity of observation such 
as a physician uses when he has a patient in some 
crisis before him. I stood still under this gaze, return- 
ing ft in full. At last he looked away. 

‘'You mean it;'' he said; not as a question, but in 
the hopeless tone of one asserting abated fact. “You 
are mad," he added, after a moment, “but you mean 
it." He quickly turned from me, snatched up his hat, 
went out at the open window and was gone. 

I sank back into my chair and sat there, almost un- 
conscious. Indeed I was unconscious, except for a 
keen, vivid thought in my brain. It took different 
shapes and forms, as thus — “ I had done right — I had 
conquered — I had saved myself — I was virtuous — it 
was good that I had conquered — Svenski would know 
there was one good woman in the world — one who 
could resist temptation — yes, I was good — I was vir- 
tuous — I was not to be swayed by mere passion." 

Do you think it is pleasant for me to record this ? 
But I can bear to do it now, for illusion is gone — “the 


THE CONFESSIONS OF A WOMAN 89 

old hours retire — and I promised at the outset that I 
would try and explain every thought and feeling, there- 
fore I must put this down ; and I demand of other 

V 

good and virtuous people, who are also honest, whether 
they, too, are not proud and vain and selfish in their 
innermost souls. Because I had a standard to live up 
to, because I was caked with self-respect from head 
to foot, I thought nothing of Svenski except as a tempter.* 
I thought nothing of his suffering, his ineradicable dis- 
appointment, the life-long soreness which such events 
leave on a passionate nature like his. I have nothing 
to offer in self-defence, nothing to say in extenuation. 

I look back now upon the beautiful white-faced woman 
who sat in that chair, proud in the consciousness of her 
own uprightness, with a measureless contempt. What 
was it I was so proud of? How came it that my heart 
was hard, and no tender spot in it bled for the man 
who had come so far to offer me his life, himself 
Of late years I have learned to look on things from 
different sides, to view situations from the points of 
view which the several persons concerned in them 
might hold. And I tell you, my reader, I am grown ' 
afraid of good people. They are so self-centred, so 
egotistical. I am grown afraid of people who make 
professions. I made professions that night in my heart. 

I had praise and pity for myself and none for Svenski. 

I reproached him bitterly because he gave me not 
friendship but love. I was very ignorant. I have no 
other excuse to offer. 


90 


THE CONFESSIONS OF A WOMAN. 


CHAPTER X. 

I SLEPT peacefully that night, and awoke proud and 
quiet in the morning. But my egotistical peace was 
soon broken in upon by another visitor, even more 
unexpected, if that were possible, than Svenski him- 
self. As I stepped out of my morning-room window I 
came face to face with Ashton Harcourt. He looked 
to me like a stranger ; and yet his presence had the 
power to freeze the blood in my veins. I had never 
dreamed of seeing him alive again. I had fancied I 
might look on his corpse, or he on mine ; but never 
that I should look on his face like this, in the sunshine, 
in the fresh air, just as though I were still his wife. 
For I had so wrung myself from the past that I had 
forgotten I was still his wife. 

‘‘You have refused to see me so often,” he said, 
“ that I am obliged to wait at your door for the chance 
of seeing you. Yet I am your husband, Lily, and I 
want to do all that is right.” 

I looked at him, and at the sound of that too-familiar 
voice, dropped to the softest note, the blood in me 
seemed all to go to my heart. I suppose he thought I 
was going to faint, for he hastily brought a garden chair 
that stood close by, and put his hand on my arm to 
induce me to sit down in it. At his touch I screamed. I 


THE CONFESSIONS OF A WOMAN 


91 

do not think I have ever screamed before or since. I have 
never screamed, certainly, when other women do ; the 
events which frighten them interest me, and I look on 
with profound attention, right through the most exciting 
point. But this was like an ice-cold hand laid on my 
heart. It was the actual shock of a physical horror or 
pain. Ashton started back from me. ''What is the 
matter.^'' he exclaimed. "Are you hysterical 

I sank into the chair and tried to think. I forgot that 
he expected an answer. I was trying to understand 
what I had felt. After watching me a moment he 
brought another chair and sat down close beside me. I 
raised my eyes and looked steadily at him — suddenly 
sense and understanding came to me. His touch had 
been like the touch of a corpse, for his passion for me 
was dead. This man loved me no longer. I sat in 
pulseless amazement. The sun surely must stand still, 
nature must express for me my voiceless pain. Yes, 
this is how it affected me. I felt my tragedy to be 
unique, one alone, a thing of itself. I had not even! 
guessed then that change is the one certain thing w e 
know of in this life of ours — none can discover its 
meaning — whether it is part of a real law of evolution, 
or a mere blind fact. But it is certain. When we resist 
it we quarrel with an irresistible force ; and this crushes 
and kills us with the mercilessness of nature. I, proud, 
foolish creature, was resisting it now, and I brought 
upon myself deserved suffering. Thoroughly deserved 
it, for I was resenting what I had no right to resent. 
My regard for Ashton had died at one blow the night I 


92 


THE CONFESSIONS OF A WOMAN 


left him, and yet I resented bitterly the complete death 
of his passion for me. I had been accustomed to exer- 
cise power over him ; I had none now to exercise. I 
knew this and recognized it, and was made blindly 
angry by it. And I was at that time what people 
habitually call a good woman ! and I believed myself 
to be a good woman. 

‘'You must take care of your health,'' he said. “I 
do not want you to stay in this gloomy, quiet place. 
Will you not travel } Take some friend with you and 
go abroad. It would be so much better for you." 

I looked steadily at him, and only succeeded, by 
giving him great attention, in mastering the meaning of 
his words. Then I replied, ‘ ‘ I am free to do as I like, 
I suppose." 

“Not quite," said Ashton, “you are my wife, you 
know ; you bear my name ; and besides you are a 
genius, marked and noticed by every one, and I am 
very proud of you. I will do all that can be done to 
save you annoyance, and to prevent your being talked 
about. I understand from Lady McCleod that it is use- 
less to try and persuade you to live with me again at 
present. But all may come well in time. Meanwhile, 
we must hide from the world the condition of things 
between us. You cannot live alone here, without any 
companion or friend, and let Svenski come to see you. 
Go abroad for your health ; Lady McCleod will go with 
you; and I will go to Africa and shoot tigers." 

I have never been frivolous, if I am sometimes called 
cynical ; yet I made a speech now which seemed to 


THE CONFESSIONS OF A WOMAN 


93 

me, the moment I had uttered it, hideous, both in its 
cynicism and its frivolity. 

Does Mrs. Herries like the idea of Africa ? I said. 
‘‘ It is a pity to risk her beautiful complexion.” 

I believe that at the most critical moments of our 
lives we act without motive. I cannot get any account 
from myself ; I never have been able to get any account 
from myself of why I made this speech. It was the 
most foolish and undignified thing I could have said. 
It was the finishing touch with Ashton. He got up 
and walked about for a minute, and then came and sat 
down by me again. 

I did not come here to be taunted and reproached, % 
he said; ‘Ht is too late for that. I have made every 
offer in my power, by letter, and have come here to try 
and see you and make the same offers. I offered to 
pledge myself never to see Mrs. Herries again. But you 
never opened my letters, nor would you see me. It is 
too late now to begin this kind of thing. You have 
treated me like a dog, and now you propose to com- 
mence playing the role of a jealous woman. Ton my 
word, it is wonderful how different women are ! Mrs. 
Herries has been my friend for five years, yet she never 
reproached me when I was bewitched by your beauty 
and left her for you ; and when you got wrapped up in 
your work and cared to talk to no one but Svenski, and 
I went to see her, she met me with a smile. That's 
what I call a kind, sensible woman. There is no man- 
aging you, for you seem to go by ideas that the world 
has nothing to do with ; and you car^ for no one but 


THE CONFESSIONS OF A WOMAN 


94 

yourself. A man can't stand being treated like a dog 
too long. But Lady McCleod told me how ill you were, 
and I saw it was necessary to risk the results of coming 
to see you, and to try and explain things to you reason- 
ably." 

Oh, Agatha ! Agatha ! I did not think of her then ; 
but I cannot help thinking of her now as I recall this 
phase of my life. 

I listened so attentively to this speech that I had it in 
my heart ; and yet I could not understand it. I was 
feeling, at that moment, only feeling ; and 1 could not 
think. But the words sank into my mind, where they 
impressed themselves. The comparison drawn between 
Mrs. Herries and myself entirely failed to reach my 
intelligence ; in fact, I did not understand it till long 
afterwards^ although its superficial meaning came to me 
in a little while. All I understood at the moment was 
that Agatha and my husband had been making plans 
for me ; that I was to go abroad with her, and that some 
kind of external reconciliation was to be arranged 
between me and Ashton. I rose to my feet and looked 
at him. 

prefer to remain quietly in my own house," I said. 

It cannot matter to you. Leave me alone; I never 
wish to see you or think of you again." 

By heaven ! " he exclaimed, it is too much. Stay, 
if you will ; we have done all we can for you. But I 
swear if you stay here alone and receive your lovers, I 
will get a divorce and marry Flora Herries. She has a 
generous heart, whatever her other faults may be," 


THE CONFESSIONS OF A WOMAN, 


95 

He walked away quickly and did not even look after 
him. I went back into the house very slowly and went 
upstairs and lay down on my bed ; I was quite quiet 
and seemed hardly to know anything except that I was 
tired. It was still early in the morning, but I felt as if 
the day were over. And so it was indeed for me. I lay 
like one dazed, and lay so day after day. I don't know 
how many days passed, but at last Aunt Agatha came 
into my room and stood beside me. 

‘'They tell me you seem better to-day," she said; 
“ is it so ? " 

I did not answer her, but only lay still with my eyes 
on her face. There was a pain in my head which 
seemed to prevent my speaking. 

“Tell me how you feel.?^" she said gently ; but still 
getting no answer she tried another plan. She took 
my hands and tried to raise me. 

“Do get up and come into the air, child,"'she said. 
“I am sure you would be better if you roused younself. " 

I did lift myself and sat up ; and then I remembered 
what I wanted to say to Agatha. 

“Why did you talk to Ashton .? " I demanded, “why 
did you say perhaps I would live with him again You 
must have known I never could do that ! " 

“ I hoped you might," she said, almost in a whisper ; 
you are cutting your own throat, my dear ; everyone 
thinks it is of course you that are in fault ; the world 
always judges in that way." 

“ Oh, the world ! " I exclaimed, “ what has the world 
ever done for me that I should think of it or con- 


96 the confessions of a woman. 

sider its opinion ? Let me live according to my own 
conscience ; you and my mother always have been con- 
sidering the world, and was it ever any good to you ? I 
cannot see it. You are always afraid, whereas I am 
afraid of nothing ! '' 

''I know,’' she said hesitatingly, ‘'that you take a 
very lofty standpoint ; but then no one understands you, 
and I cannot see that you get any more benefit by your 
method than I do by mine. Women do not leave their 
husbands for such a cause as that for which you have 
left Ashton : at all events they do not make a scandal 
about it. Do for pity’s sake set things right while it is 
still possible ; let Ashton come here, or come back to 
town. You will repent it always if you do not.” 

I was sitting up, resting my head on my hands. 
When she made this suggestion my mind went back to 
the meeting with Ashton in the garden, and I shuddered. 

“No, no, it is impossible,” I said. Thinking of the 
meeting brought back the conversation ; my mind wan- 
dered over it and suddenly an idea came to me. I lifted 
my head. 

“Tell me honestly, Aunt Agatha, if you can, how did 
Ashton know that Svenski came here ? ” 

Agatha colored and her eyes fell. “Tell me!” I 
cried out imperiously. 

“I don’t know,” she said. 

“You do know, Agatha,” I asserted. 

“I know nothing about it positively ” 

I seized her face with both hands and looked her 
straight in the eyes. 


THE CONFESSIONS OF A WOMAN 


97 

‘‘I think/' she said doubtingly, there must be some 
one watching the house." 

I dropped my hands. So, that is what Ashton thinks 
of me ! He knows me so little as that ! He judges 
me by himself ! Well," I said bitterly and proudly, ‘‘let 
him have me watched. It does not matter to me." 

Aunt Agatha began to cry a little. I really think the 
poor woman had been crying over me so much before, 
that she was too exhausted now for more than a few 
tears. 

“Is it of no use to speak to you, dear child?" she 
said. 

“ None," I answered. 

“ I don't think I can do any more with Ashton," she 
said miserably. “ I’m afraid this is the last chance. 
But remember, Lily, that you are at a disadvantage. 
You cannot divorce Ashton for what he has done ; but 
if you compromise yourself in any way, it will all go 
against you. And he can divorce you for faithlessness. 
If you get talked about any more, you will find, when 
you are recovered and want to return to the world again 
no woman will speak to you. It is true ; not because 
they are better than you, Heaven knows, but because 
they cannot afford to do it. You will be one of those 
hotorfous persons that a woman can't speak to for fear 
of hef own reputation. ” 

Her words all passed idly by me. How could I 
listen to such talk as this ? I only looked at her, 
and she saw by my vacant gaze that her efforts were 
useless. 


7 


98 the confessions of a woman. 

Well, I must go,’’ she said, it is useless my stay- 
ing here now. I shall come again soon.” 

She went away, and I said nothing. Poor Aunt Agatha 
I believe she spent half her life in the Flying Dutchman 
at this time, coming to London to see Ashton or me, 
and flying back to Scotland where her own duties lay. 

I lay there dully, gazing at the chair where Agatha 
had sat. She had gone. Everyone had gone, and there 
was no one to come. After all, I was frightfully alone. 

The desolation and the blank came on me with a sud- 
den swiftness so that I could not mistake their reality. 
I had no work in hand — no picture to go to — I was quite 
alone with my thoughts. Everything appeared to be at 
an end with me. And so I lay there, dully looking at 
the chair where Agatha had sat. 


THE CONFESSIONS OF A WOMAN. 


99 


CHAPTER XL 

This pathetic, weary sense of solitude passed by, as 
other moods passed by ; though it took weeks, indeed 
months, before I aroused from it in any way. I was 
numbed all this time ; silent, even in my heart, where 
I was conscious only of a ceaseless aching. But at 
last restlessness came, and I wanted movement. This 
was of course only natural. I have found since that 
one succumbs, and then one rises again, just as one 
in-breathes and out-breathes. It all seems to follow 
some hideous natural law, which one can chase down 
into the smallest physical or scientific facts. In time, 
if one looks at life in this way, resistance and struggle 
cease, and one accepts that which results from the com- 
bination of one's own character and of circumstances. 
The terrible thing is that we are born ignorant, and' 
have to learn by such ghastly lessons of experience. 
No record teaches ; only life. And the experience of 
life carries the wretched being who has learned to think 
beyond the illusory comfort of all philosophy, beyond 
the mental rest which the inexperienced find in schemes 
and theories of life. 

The most perfect, the greatest of these is as useless 
as the smallest. We can only observe facts and con- 
sider them ; time teaches us to recognize change and 


lOO 


THE CONFESSIONS OF A WOMAN 


recurrence and other characteristics of human nature ; 
when I say characteristics I mean in the sense that the 
ebb and flow of the sea may be said to be some of its 
characteristics. One always recovers from grief ; I did 
not know that then, and marvelled at the stir in myself, 
and the longing for movement. I thought of a saddle- 
horse, but I felt so weak and weary, I thought I should 
sway and fall from the saddle. Then I thought of what 
it would be like to be out in the fresh wind behind a 
pair of swift horses that would carry me forward as 
one is carried in a dream. It was a dream to me ; I 
had been so still, so much of a recluse, that I had to 
try and picture myself out and moving, and to fancy 
what it would be like to be in the quick air again, be- 
fore 1 could determine to do anything. The first thing 
was to inquire into the condition of the stables. I 
knew nothing about them, nor about the household, for 
the matter of that. Fortunately for me, I had a house- 
keeper who was fond of me, or perhaps fond of her 
position ; I am grown so cynical and distrustful now 
that it would seem to me presumptuous to say she was 
fond of me. She was an admirable housekeeper, how- 
ever ; and fortunately I had plenty of money. Thus 
there were no mundane cares to distract me from the 
bent of my life and mind. Perhaps if I had been poor, 
and had children, I might have been different — observe, 
my reader, that I am now quoting the kind of thing 
which people continually say, both men and women. 
Yet one fancies men ought to be sensible. Let us 
grant that character and circumstances make life ; and 


THE COHFESSIONS OE A WOMAN. 


lot 

life is a hard fact, the one nut we have to crack between 
our teeth, whether we will or not. I was rich and I 
had no children. Who could alter these circumstances } 
I might have given away my money or founded a 
creche ; but I preferred spending my money, and I 
did not like children. These are simply facts. The 
‘"if’' people are more irritating than any other class of 
unreasonable talkers ; and when I hear them I simply 
say to myself — 

‘ ‘ If ifs and ands were pots and pans 
The tinker would have no cares.” 

It is no use giving serious answers to foolish remarks. 
So I will merely reiterate my statement that I was rich, 
and free to follow the bent of my mental and emotional 
life. After thinking about my imaginary pair of horses 
for a long w^hile I ultimately made inquiries, and found 
that the stables only contained the old carriage horses 
which were used for the station carriage ; and a cob 
for the groom to go on errands. So it was evident I 
must buy my horses. Then came a bite and a twinge— 
Ashton understood horses — for the first time I missed 
him — positively missed him ! and instead of sitting 
down and crying, which would no doubt have done me 
good, I got angry wdth myself and determined to get 
over this difficulty in some w^ay — in any way. I have 
always felt that I ought to control circumstances, not 
that circumstances should control me. And I had sense 
enough to see that if I did not at once act and get over 
this initial difficulty I should be always hesitating, and 
always thinking of Ashton — and missing him ! The 


102 


THE CONFESSIONS OF A WOMAN 


very idea humiliated and enraged me. I rang the bell 
and sent for the old coachman who had been Paul 
Phayre's servant. I asked him if he would go to Lon- 
don the next morning and get me a light phaeton and a 
pair of quick-stepping thoroughbreds. There came a 
gleam into the old man’s clear blue eyes that was good 
to see. ^^Why, my dear,” Aunt Agatha would have 
said, '‘Just think of the commission that man will 
make.” What did I care.?* I told him he need not be 
very particular about price so long as he got the right 
sort of horses ; and that the phaeton must be of the very 
newest build, very light. 

" ril get them, ma’am,” he said, "but I hope you 
will come up to London to see them. I wouldn’t like 
the responsibility of actually bringing them home with- 
out your seeing them.” 

"Oh, no, I cannot be bothered,” I said impatiently, 
"just get the thing done as quickly as possible.” 

"Well, of course I could get a horse changed if you 
didn’t like him,” he said, turning the affair slowly over 
in his mind. 

"Certainly,” I said quickly, " or the phaeton either. 
Go to Morgan’s for that. I should like you to go up to 
town to-night, and don’t keep me waiting longer than 
you can help. ” 

The old man touched his forehead and smiled. 1 
knew I was acting en princesse^ but I did not care, nor 
did it matter to me what the man thought of me, or of 
his golden opportunity. We had some little talk about 
the price of the horses, and then I went back to my 


THE CONFESSIONS OF A WOMAN. 


103 

studio, where I chiefly lived. I took a clean canvas 
and began to touch in a wild sketch — I will say nothing 
about it, but that it expressed movement and satisfied 
my restlessness. I chose a most difticult subject, so 
as to give zest to the sensation which work gave me. 
I clung to this, working till dark and beginning at 
dawn, afraid to leave it until I should hear my horses’ 
feet outside. I sat for three days at it ; at noon on the 
fourth day I heard my horses’ feet, flung my brushes 
aside, and ran downstairs. There stood just what I 
wanted, as if spirited to the spot by some fairy ( alas,j 
money is the only fairy in this world !), a light phaeton, 
very elegant, and a pair of clean, well-made, spirited 
strawberries, rather large for the phaeton and a perfect 
match. The coachman stood waiting for me to speak. 

'‘Let me try them before I say anything,” I cried, 
and went back to change my dress. It was done 
quickly ; and I do not wonder my maid stared in 
wonder when I think that I was actually excited and full 
of eagerness. " Oh, for movement ! ” Yes, that is the 
kind of woman I was and am still I almost think ; only 
that now I am older and I have tasted of the last hour, 
shod with fire from hell, that fire which shall soon con- 
sume me utterly. 

The coachman got in behind, and I drove down the 
avenue. The gate stood open, and I could not resist it. 
At first I was timid, for my hands were of late so much 
more used to the palette and the brush than to the reins 
that I was not sure whether my wrists were strong 
enough yet. But I soon found how the horses answered 


104 CONl^ESSIONS OF A WOMAN, 

to me, and when we had turned into the road I let them 
go. There was a long wide road not far off, one I had 
often fancied myself driving along : a road with a com- 
mon on one side and on the other a high bank of waving 
grasses over which were to be caught glimpses of dis- 
tant blue country. I reached it, and the horses went 
swiftly along it, and the fresh air seemed to leap to my 
face ; I turned and drove back home. Old Rogers, the 
coachman, leaned forward. 

^'Do you like them, ma'am?'’ he asked, “they're a 
bit out of sorts with the journey." 

“Let me have them out at half-past ten to-morrow 
morning," I said. “Til take them some distance, and 
then ril tell you." 

“Poor Rogers ! He did not get much conversation 
out of me. My eyes were fixed on a far-off haze of 
violet blue that lay on the horizon ; my face was burn- 
ing with the sense of fresh air and strong wind. I got 
out at the steps of the house and went upstairs to look 
at my picture and see if there was enough movement in 
it ; and then to lie on a couch and let a faint pleasant 
sense of languor steal over me ; and then to actually take 
a book from the shelf and open it. I could not read, 
but the mere action made me wonder. Was it possible 
I was waking to life again ? " 

How selfish we all are. Of course I ought to have 
gratified Rogers by a long conversation, to have seen 
the horses in their stalls, to have inspected them all over. 
And yet why ? Many people would have done all this, 
but only because they would like a long conversation 


THE CONFESSIONS OF A WOMAN 


105 

about horses, and would like handling them, and would 
be interested in a new possession. I was only inter- 
ested in the effect of my new possession on myself; we 
each do as we like, that is all. But this is a truism. I 
am only explaining how the fresh sensation acted on 
me. I began to see my way through the misery of soli- 
tude to its subtle richness. I have known solitude in 
both its aspects — in that of the inexorable teacher — 

‘‘ If from society we learn to live, 

’Tis solitude should teach us how to die ; 

It hath no flatterers ; Vanity can give 
No hollow aid — ’ ’ 

This aspect I know well, but I know another too, 
which I cannot find marked in Byron ; for he prays for 
nature or ‘'one fair spirit.” But in positive solitude, in 
actually dwelling alone, with only thoughts in your 
mind or in books, there comes at a certain point a deep 
sense of pleasure, and a deep desire never to be ha- 
rassed or disturbed by men or women again. I was 
beginning to feel this ; not until lately have I found it 
possible to discover this sense of pleasure when quite 
alone with thoughts. I was young then, and needed 
nature and the stir of movement. Perhaps, if Byron had 
lived — but stay — I will say no more of this, for the old 
age of a poet or a beautiful woman are to me subjects 
which cannot be touched on without grief 
The next day I was out with my horses all the morn- 
ing ; I painted all the afternoon ; I read all the evening. 
So the days passed uncounted. There was a fine library 
at the Court, collected by Paul and his father ; and new 


io 6 the confessions of a woman 

tracks oi thought and study opened up to me as I lay 
here through the long evenings. I dreaded being dis- 
turbed by anyone ; but at last of course Agatha came — 
with a lecture. 

“ My dear/’ she said, why do you drive about so 
much alone } Don't you know how much noticed you 
are, and how the people watch you ? Why I heard about 
your strawberry horses up in Scotland." 

‘'Well, I don’t notice the people or watch them” I 
said, “why cannot they leave me alone.? I am sure I 
am living as harmless a life as it is possible to live." 

“My dear, a woman of your appearance and noto- 
riety can't do anything harmless ; the less there is to say 
about her the worse it is I believe, for people invent." 

“Then I reiterate what I have said before, that it is 
just as well to do as one likes and take no notice of the 
world. " 

I saw she had something she wanted to ask me about ; 
but I would give her no chance. However, the next day 
when the horses were brought round she came out 
with it 


THE CONFESSIONS OF A WOMAN., 


107 


CHAPTER XIL 

She drew me back into the breakfast-room. 

‘‘Why have you given up taking Rogers she said. 
“ or, at least, why don’t you take a groom ? ” 

“How do you know I don’t take one ? ” I demanded. 

“I — I have heard of it.’’ 

“Oh, indeed, the spies are still at work. Very likely 
Rogers himself reports. But what is the use of troub- 
ling about these things .? I prefer to be alone when I 
am out in the country.” 

“ But you know it is unusual and gets noticed.’’ 

“Oh! ” I said, rather impatiently, I fear, “ I don’t 
notice these people about here ; I never think of them. 
If they notice me they must have very little else to 
think of.’’ 

“Don’t you know Captain Pontifex ? ” she asked, after 
a moment’s hesitation. 

“I never heard of him.” 

“He is reputed to know you very well.” 

“That ought to show you what gossip is worth.” 

“It ought to show you how dangerous it is to lay 
yourself open to gossip.’’ 

“ In what lies the danger.'^ ’’ 

“Well, I will tell you. Already your name is coupled 


io 8 the confessions of a woman. 

with that of Captain Pontifex, and people say that if he 
does not visit here you certainly meet him when you 
are out.” 

What ! ” I exclaimed. When I don't even know 
the man ! Have never seen him ! ” ‘ 

believe you when you say that,” said Agatha. 

But people in general believe the story.” 

‘‘But I have never seen him,” I repeated. 

“Think,” she said. “ It may have all grown out of 
one small incident. Not that any good would be done 
now — except by your going back — ” she stopped and 
then went on, “Think ; Captain Pontifex rides about the 
country constantly. He is a tall, broad-shouldered man 
with a heavy brown moustache, that curls at the ends ; 
he is very handsome, and has the most charming 
manners — ” 

“ Oh, the man that stopped the horses one day when 
the train frightened them. Oh, yes, I know him by 
sight, and spoke to him then.” 

Agatha turned and looked at me. 

“Only then.?” 

“He stopped me once afterwards, when I was on a 
road strange to me, to tell me it was not safe for the 
horses.” 

Agatha's eyelids quivered and drew together. For 
the first time I saw she did not believe me. The sense 
of this hurt me so bitterly that the pain seemed quite un- 
bearable at the moment, and I stood speechless. She 
did not speak again for some minutes, and then in a very 
low voice. 


THE CONFESSIONS OF A WOMAN 


109 

He is so well known — he is a notorious profligate 
— for his name to be coupled with any woman's is 
fatal — oh, you are mad — you are mad. I do implore 
you, go back to Ashton." 

‘'I think. Aunt Agatha," I said coldly, though my 
heart was beating furiously with anger, ‘‘it would be 
better for us not to meet, if the talk is always to be like 
this, and if you do not believe what I say. I have no 
object in telling you a lie." 

“Then why do it now V she asked, quickly, as if 
with sudden hope. 

“I have not done it ! " I cried out. “Aunt Agatha, I 
will not endure this. I would rather be alone." 

I went out and got into the carriage and drove away. 
I never took a servant with me now. These long sol- 
itary drives of mine were a keen pleasure to me, and 
I had learned the country so well that I needed no one 
to tell me the way. It was delightful to be out for hours 
alone driving along these quiet country roads where, as 
it had seemed to me, I never met anyone. For this 
“ handsome, broad-shouldered " man had never attracted 
my attention. This is the fact ; I knew him by sight, 
without noticing him, if I may be allowed to use such 
an expression. This was what I expected Aunt Agatha 
to understand ; she, who knew me so well, who knew 
my independent nature, to be capable of thinking I 
should tell her such a lie as this ! Such an unnecessary 
lie, as it seemed to me. However, gossip had done its 
usual devil's work : it had separated me from Agatha ; 
it had made me mad with anger at its injustice ; it had 


no the confessions of a woman 

made me perfectly aware who Captain Pontifex was. 

“ Have I not had my brain sear’d, my heart riven, 

Hopes sapp’d, name blighted, Life’s life lied away ?»’ 

Those lines burned in my memory as I drove along. 
My habit of living alone with books so much has made 
me often, think in the words of those greater than my- 
self ; and doubtless the critics will say that this record 
is a pot-pourri made up out of the writings of others. 
But the critics do not matter now, as they did matter 
seventy or eighty years ago, when the flowers of our 
grand nation, the little group of young-old, triumphant, 
desperate poets had for the moment to stand or fall by 
the words of these gentlemen. Now all this is changed, 
and, as in the theatre, it is not the critics in the stalls or 
the newspaper articles they write which decide the fate 
of a play, but '‘the house the public itself — so in the 
world of letters. The public has asserted itself there 
also ; therefore it is to my reader, not to my critic, that 
I say if this work is a pot-pourri what does it matter ! 
It makes it none the less real. Everyone who thinks 
goes to the book-shelf ; it is not possible to live in the 
fullest sense without thinking, and therefore reading. 
Sensation alone is nothing. Therefore I believe my 
reader, the only sort of reader who will read this record 
through, will not complain because I found myself beat- 
ing against the same bars as great authors of all ages ; 
touching, in my life of to-day the same points of emo- 
tion and despair that they touched. I am not writing 
a romance, or a fable, or anything new ; it is all old, 


THE CONFESSIONS OF A WOMAN. 


Ill 


quite old, in spite of the fact thait it is always being 
chronicled, and that Dumas, Daudet, Bourget are tell- 
ing the old tale in the modern fashion. My only claim 
is that I am telling a true tale, without any veil over it ; 
the tale of all my days and hours, and times and ways 
and words. Do you remember, my reader, these bitter 
words said by one who was too sensitive to live — ‘‘O, 
that something fortunate had ever happened to me or 
my brothers ! then I might hope, but despair is forced 
upon me as a habit.’' These words too were in my 
mind. They were spoken by a sensitive creature whom 
the beef-eating Englishmen called morbid. That word 
is supposed to settle everything. I have been called 
Vnorbid. Well, if I am I was born so. And I am in 
excellent company. I am not unique ; nature makes 
types, not individuals ; she only varies the number, 
making creatures of some types innumerable, others 
scantier, some in such small quantity as to be rare. 
But go to the other side of the earth, however rare you 
are, and somewhere is to be found another of your kin. 
Ever our lives, as well as the people who live them, 
are duplicated, though in outward circumstances they 
may appear different. The author we love has a mys-r 
terious power over us by expressing our own inexpress-* 
ible thoughts ; and mysterious indeed is the power over'* 
you of a person who recognizes you ever so little — who 
can say to you, ‘^you know " — and to whom you can 
answer, I know. " But now I am thinking of a later 
hour when sweet was life to hear and sweet to 
smell.” To-day I knew nothing but pain and anger j 


112 


THE CONFESSIONS OF A WOMAN. 


I felt that despair was being forced on me as a habit 
What could I do ? How escape ? Escape ! From what ? 
from the Great Nemesis ”? I, a child, a mere wilful 
child, struggle with the fates and furies that make of 
human life order, or disorder ; chaos absolute as it 
seems to me now, in spite of the physical, emotional, 
social laws which steadily work in it. Submit to those 
laws, and it is possible to live — rebel — think for your- 
self — and immediately all is chaos. All hope is gone 
beneath. 

“ The blight of life — the demon Thought.” 

But I was only beginning to rebel — beginning to 
think for myself — as yet. 1 had still an ideal, a hope. 
Each hour, each day tended to draw these from me ; 
but when I met Captain Pontifex that morning it was 
out of mere bravado that I reined in my horses. Now 
I would do such a thing simply from indifference — from 
the knowledge that nothing matters, that it is all one what- 
ever we do ; but then I did it out of reckless bravado. 
What I did was surprisingly innocent, considering how I 
am apologizing for it ; but nevertheless it created a sub- 
sequent situation which I suppose the worldly person 
would say I ought to have foreseen. I pulled up and 
said ^^Good-morning'' to Captain Pontifex, who looked 
at me half-smilingly, half seriously, and carefully 
watching me for his cue — even I saw that, in spite of 
my inexperience, and it made me impatient at last, so 
that after a few minutes’ conversation I bid him good-bye 
and passed on. 1 had observed a carriage drive along 
a cross-road and Captain Pontifex smile as the occu- 


THE CONFESSIONS OF A WOMAN 


II3 


pants craned their necks in our direction ; but I only 
thought to myself how vulgar such curiosity was. I 
drove on with a certain sense of pleasure in having 
shown even to myself that I was not to be so readily 
intimidated. 

I got home, rather dejected, why I knew not, except 
that my foolish bit of bravado had been followed by a 
reaction, and I seemed to find the house very quiet 
without Agatha. For she had gone, while I was out, 
as I expected. Poor Agatha ! I try sometimes to see 
all these events from her point of view, and I can per- 
ceive how headstrong and unreasonable I must have 
appeared to her. The world we live in wore a totally 
different aspect to Agatha from what it wore to me ; 
and nothing could reconcile our two points of view. 

And now I was alone, quite alone ; having driven 
my last friend away I was free to do as I liked, without 
even hearing a comment on my actions. I was dis- 
tinctly aware of this situation, and, being so, felt no 
desire to act in any way — a dull apathy settled on me, 
and I felt sadder than I had ever yet felt in my life. 
Sadness was new to me. I had been passionate, des- 
perate, most miserable ; but now for the first time I 
felt the strange melancholy of sadness. It was the 
sense of the deep loneliness in which I now was that 
induced this. My heart was vacant. Oh, how sad that 
is ! People talk of the mischief idle fingers find to do — 
but that is nothing to the possibilities which arise from 
a heart being vacant. An ideal maybe enshrined which 

at another time would be regarded with horror. 

8 


1 14 THE CONFESSIONS OF A WOMAN 

Perhaps I had better at once say, lest the experienced 
novel-reader should suppose that I am apologizing be- 
forehand for falling in love with Captain Pontifex, that 
I did not fall in love with him. I never gave him a 
thought after the world had done its usual evil work, 
and separated Agatha, my one friend, from me, by a 
perfectly groundless slander. He had served his pur- 
pose in my life's drama, and disappeared from it. 
What I began to think about now was to wonder whether 
it would be considered very improper of me if I went 
off and travelled alone with my maid. I sat there all the 
long evening dreaming about this ; but at last as I rose 
to go to bed, I felt I should not do it. I had not 
recovered sufficiently to have as much enterprise as 
this required. My horses, and the fresh country roads 
were all I needed as yet. The next morning I was out 
earlier than usual, driven to nature by the sense of 
loneliness in my house. 

I tried to go a new road, from a simple desire for 
change. I knew all the neighborhood by heart, and 
the choice of roads was limited. There was one very 
steep road which had always attracted me, and now I 
determined to climb it for the sake of a new horizon. 

Well, I went on this road, and after a while found I 
had to climb a really terrible hill, and that the road, too, 
was crooked and awkward. I saw how awkward it 
ivould be to come down, but I did not realize this until 
the road had become so narrow I did not like to risk 
turning. So on the horses climbed, and I thought to 
myself that I had one consolation — I really did not care 


TBE CONFESSIONS OF A WOMAN, 


II5 

much if I was thrown out and killed. Of course this 
was nonsense, for I had not really reached that stage of 
feeling yet ; but that was how I fancied I felt. I 
thought life was valueless to me, so it was in a sense, 
because I had no interests ; but I was capable of awak- 
ing to new interests, as we shall see, if I ever succeed 
in telling my story, and do not stay too long by the 
way making comments. 

When I reached the top of the hill I found I com- 
manded a glorious view ; so I pulled up the horses to 
let them rest, and to look round me. A few minutes 
later and I heard a horse coming up behind me ; it was 
old Rogers, the coachman, who had followed me. I was 
annoyed, but I had sense enough not to show it. He 
looked rather grave. 

‘'It is a pity you have driven up here, madam,'' he 
said, “for the road really is too steep for those spirited 
horses. Whichever way you go down from here you 
have as bad a descent. I wonder if you are strong 
enough to hold the horses up. Won't you allow me to 
drive you down." 

“No, thank you, Rogers, no/’ I answered lightly, “I 
can take care of the horses, I assure you. It was worth 
while driving up here only to see the view. " 

“ Yes, it is very fine, ma'am. Do you see that house 
and chapel in the valley ? It is the Merrions'— but I 
suppose you know all about them and the house." 

“No," I said, “Tell me, for I know nothing about 
the people who live here. I don't know the Merrions’ 
house or chapel, nor have I ever heard of them. I can’t 


ii 6 the confessions of a woman 

see the house from any of the other roads, it is so banked 
by trees.” 

‘‘And yet, ma'am, it is quite close to the Court,” he 
said ; “those two fields are all that separate the grounds, 
and that line of trees that goes along the fields shelters 
a walk that leads from one house to the other. Mr. Paul 
Phayre, who used to live there, was an intimate friend 
of the Merrions, and in his time the pathway was often 
used. But you surely know, ma’am, that Merrion House 
is very old ; an historical sort of building, as Pve heard. 
And its old Catholic chapel too ! It’s reckoned one of 
the great sights in this county.” 

I began now vaguely to remember Paul Phayre men- 
tioning it to me ; but since the Court had been my own 
I had never felt any interest in anything beyond its 
walls, and the lawn just outside the window, where 
the blackbirds and thrushes had seemed like company 
in my solitude, so that this information interested me. 
I asked some questions, and Rogers told me the history 
of Merrion House and that of the Court, which was also 
a very old house. I knew all about the Court, but the 
old servant had a loquacious, pleasant way of talking, 
so I did not interrupt him. The Merrions, he told me, 
were an old Catholic family, well known in history as 
staunch supporters of the faith ; ready to fight or die for 
it. “They are the same as ever,” he said, “though 
there is no fighting or dying for the faith now-a-days. 
But they have a priest all to themselves, and give their 
money to the church. I hear Mr. Arthur Merrion is en- 
gaged to be married to a young French lady, not yet 


THE CONFESSIONS OF A WOMAN ' 117 

out of the convent, belonging to a family even older 
and more distinguished than his own. I believe he has 
never seen her. It is wonderful what a religion will 
make gentlemen like that do. We poor folk can't pre- 
tend to understand it." 

I had no answer which I cared to make to this reflec- 
tion, and I thought the conversation had lasted long 
enough ; so I took up the reins. Old Rogers put his 
hand on the carriage. 

‘‘For God's sake, ma'am, don't drive down this hill 
yourself ! " he exclaimed. I drew my eyebrows to- 
gether and looked at him. 

‘ ‘ Let me take the horses down, ma'am, and you walk, " 
he said, with an earnestness I had never seen in him be- 
fore. But I was not in the humor to appreciate the old 
servant's anxiety and consideration. 

“Why.? "I said, “I am not accustomed to be inter- 
fered with." 

“I must beg you to excuse me, ma'am, "he said even 
more earnestly. “I cannot help it. Let me take the 
horses." 

There was a tone as of a hen over her duckling now in 
his voice that irritated me ; it made me think of Agatha. 
“No, " I exclaimed, “You shall not. I am going to drive 
them down myself. Why, these horses would hardly en- 
dure another hand now, they are so used to me. I can do 
anything with them." 

“Pray, do not drive them down the hill," he said in 
an imploring tone ; “ you don't know the danger." 

“Come," I said angrily, “what can it possibly mat- 


Il8 THE CONFESSIONS OF A WOMAN 

ter to you whether I am thrown out or not ? Take your 
hand from the carriage. I am going to drive on and 
you may suffer if you do not let go.'' 

1 was so angry now it was all I could do to prevent 
myself from knocking his hand from the carriage with 
my whip. I am not going to apologize for myself, or 
to try and make things appear any better than they 
were. I was not reasonable, I know. But I never have 
been reasonable. This incident is quite typical of my 
course through life. The fact was, I suspected Agatha 
had spoken to Rogers, or even perhaps my husband, 
that he had been bidden to watch me was my idea ; 
and it maddened me. Why should these people make 
a virtue of guarding my life when they had spoiled it } 
In my rage at the thought that my servant was perhaps 
really the servant of Ashton Harcourt, I did a foolish 
thing ; I flicked his horse and made it start aside and 
drew the whip over the backs of my horses, a signal 
they answered too instantly, and with the reins I roused 
them so effectually that in a moment they were tearing 
down the other side of the hill we had ascended. Very 
quickly after the folly was committed I became aware 
of the danger of the road I was on, and putting aside 
my whip took the reins in both hands. The road was 
not only steep, but only half made with rugged places 
in it, and on the leftside the hill went quickly down, so 
that at any moment the carriage might swerve and then 
there would be an end. I would have tried to check 
the horses, but that I heard Rogers galloping behind me ; 
so I determined to simply guide them and endeavor to 


THE CONFESSIONS OF A WOMAN 


IT9 


get safely to the bottom of the hill. Indeed there was 
really nothing else to be done ; to check the horses 
would have been very difficult. I was very near the 
bottom of the hill — I could see the broad, smooth road 
on to which this rugged one entered, and I could see a 
carriage and pair on the broad road ; my mind was in- 
tent on the calculation of how best to turn the awful 
corner at the speed my horses were going, and how to 
avoid that carriage ! — which way to turn, how soon 
the carriage would have passed the end of the road or 
not — when suddenly I became entirely unconscious, be- 
ing aware only for a brief second of a sense of the solid 
earth falling away from under my feet. 

What had happened was that the carriage had plunged 
into a deep rut and s^verved. It had not gone over, 
but I was shot right out of it on to the grassy side of the 
road, while the horses went tearing on, even more ex- 
cited. 


120 


THE CONFESSIONS OF A WOMAN 


CHAPTER XIII. 

When I opened my eyes again I looked straight into 
another pair of eyes. They were large, dark, soft eyes, 
with a tenderness and delicacy of expression that inter- 
ested my wandering and vacant mind. I had never 
seen such eyes before, and I think the artist awoke first 
in me. I know that my first conscious thought was 

How I should like to paint those eyes."' I gazed, my 
eyelids, which longed to close from weariness and ex- 
haustion, held open by surprise and interest. I saw 
that these beautiful eyes were in a young man’s face — 
not a woman’s, as I had expected. The face was not 
very handsome, but had an air of distinction about it 
that gave it a charm ; it was very pale, and the hair 
and the moustache, which, to my regret as an artist, 
hid the mouth, were intensely black — blue-black. The 
exertion of taking all this in exhausted my strength and 
I sank back into unconsciousness. 

When I again recovered I felt much stronger and 
could look round me. I was in a large, cool, flower- 
scented room lying on a wide old-fashioned couch, 
which was covered with some old brocade. This 
attracted my attention, it was so pretty, and I put out 
my hand to touch it. Immediately my hand was taken 
by another and looking up I saw a lady bending over 


THE CONFESSIONS OF A WOMAN. 


121 


me. She was very sweet-looking, with large, dark 
liquid eyes and dark hair. 

You are better,’' she said. ‘‘lam so glad. You 
have quite frightened us.” 

I really was better, and as she spoke I raised myself 
and sat up. Then I saw that just behind her was the 
young man with the wonderful eyes ; evidently her son. 

“ I should like to know where I am,” I said slowly. 

“You are in Merrion House,” she said, smiling at my 
puzzled manner, I suppose. “Don’t you remember 
coming down that dreadful hill? You were thrown 
out.” 

“Oh, are the horses hurt? ” I exclaimed. 

“No, 1 believe not,” she answered. “They were 
stopped on the road and have been taken home. You 
got the worst of it ; I was terribly afraid you were really 
hurt. My son and the coachman carried you down the 
hill and we brought you here.” 

“Oh, then it was your carriage I saw ? I remember 
being so afraid I should dash against it,” I said, my 
mind going back to that awful last moment of con- 
sciousness. 

“Yes, but fortunately we escaped, and indeed the 
whole thing has ended much better than I ever hoped. 
Now, Arthur, fetch Mrs. Harcourt a glass of champagne. 
She is just fit to take it ; and I really believe she is all 
right. Two doctors have been sent for, Mrs. Harcourt. 
Your servant went off for one and I sent for another. I 
hope by the time they come you Will be quite well.” 

My mind was wandering about and I could scarcely 


122 


THE CONFESSIONS OF A WOMAN, 


attend to her words. It was so long since I had been 
in any house but my own that the sensation was quite 
novel. So this pleasant drawing-room was in the old 
house Rogers had been telling me about ; and this 
dark-eyed, sweet-faced woman was Mrs. Merrion ; and 
that young man with the gazelle-like eyes was Arthur 
Merrion, who was engaged to a French girl ; and these 
kind people were Roman Catholics and had a chapel 
and a priest of their own. This was just how the 
thoughts passed through my head ; I was vaguely and 
rather pleasantly interested. I had never been inter- 
ested in any Roman Catholics, never having been suf- 
ficiently intimate with any to wonder what effect their 
religion might have upon their lives. But these people 
were so kind, so gentle, so graceful and distinguished 
in manner, with just the attributes that woke my artistic 
sense, that I immediately began to reflect over all that 
Rogers had told me, and to look at them with interest. 
These were the first human beings who had interested 
me since that night when I had seen Mrs. Herries at 
the opera ; so it may be imagined that the sensation 
was an acceptable one. Human interest is the one 
thing that preserves life ; and this came to me just in 
time. I had preyed upon myself long enough, and I 
recognized the fact now that I was with these pleasant, 
cultured people. Arthur Merrion brought me the cham- 
pagne and I drank it slowly, while they talked to me, 
and together, in low attuned voices which were in com- 
plete harmony with the quiet of the room and its deli- 
cate flower scents. Just as I was languidly revelling 


THE CONFESSIONS OF A WOMAN 


123 

in this new sensation of quiet content an unutterable 
sense of weakness overcame me ; all I knew was that 
I was falling forwards. As a matter of fact I simply 
sank on to the floor from the couch, spilling the wine, 
and lay there as unconscious as though I were dead. 
The two doctors arrived just then and entered upon this 
scene ; this of course was fatal. I was carried upstairs 
under their joint auspices, undressed and put between 
rose-petal scented sheets. This I know because I 
smelled the fragrance when I began to recover in spite 
of the various medicaments which had been used on 
my face, and the brandy that had been forced between 
my teeth. I awoke to a sense of complete contentment 
of a peculiar kind, which I believe is unknown to those 
persons who have never been very ill or completely 
exhausted. All restlessness or wish for movement had 
gone from me, and I only desired to stay just as I was, 
without even moving a finger. I therefore played the 
thoughtless hypocrite as sick people often do, and kept 
my eyes closed some time after my consciousness had 
returned. Presently, however, I was roused to greater 
activity of mind by a strange touch and voice. ‘‘She 
is all right now,” said the voice. 

I opened my eyes, curiosity conquering languor, and 
saw two strange men whom I immediately concluded 
to be the two doctors Mrs. Merrion had spoken of ; and 
she herself, and a woman-servant stood there with them. 
I imagined I had frightened them all a good deal, from 
the scene, and I tried to be reassuring and smiled. Mrs. 
Merrion came to me and kissed me. The doctors 


124 


THE CONFESSIONS OF A WOMAN. 


turned and went out of the room together. I hearu one 
say to the other, '^It's the nervous shock.'" 

‘‘Are the horses hurt.? " I said to Mrs. Merrion. She 
crossed the room and opened the door. 

“Arthur, "she said, “ Mrs. Harcourt has asked again 
about the horses. I wish you would go up to the Court 
and see them, so that we can tell her positively they are 
all right. It won't do to let her worry about anything." 

This brought my mind round from the horses to the 
gazelle-eyed young man. I did not feel any desire to 
see him, but I did like to think of him. His was the 
most attractive face I had ever seen, and I liked to call 
it up before me, with its expression of gentle melan- 
choly and high-bred quietude. 

I will be candid with you, my reader, and tell you 
that I did fall in love with Arthur Merrion. But you 
must follow me through the history of that love, for it 
is a very curious one. 

I did not rise again from that sweet-scented bed all 
that day, but lay in a half-weary half-contented dimness 
of mind, and weakness of body, right on into the night, 
unquestioning, scarcely thinking, sometimes half-asleep, 
sometimes but half-conscious. I saw the servant, 
Mrs. Merrion's maid, and Mrs. Merrion herself often by 
my bedside ; and often through the night. At the quite 
early dawn I suddenly woke out of a sleep and saw 
Mrs. Merrion standing by me ; and whether I was dream- 
ing or delirious I know not but I cried out, “Oh, mother ! 
mother ! why have I not a mother ? " and she took me 
in her arms and held me close and kissed me, and I fell 


THE CONFESSIONS OF A WOMAN. 


125 

asleep again. When I awoke to the broad daylight I 
fancied this was all a dream ; but it was not, for she 
reminded me of it long afterwards, and for a strange 
purpose. 

When I had had some tea I fancied myself quite well 
and proposed to get up and go home. I said this to the 
maid, who immediately went in great consternation to 
tell her mistress. Mrs. Merrion came and persuaded me 
to lie still a little longer. When she was in the room I 
was content and quiet. She came in and out during 
the morning, and at last said I might try getting up and 
then see if I could go downstairs to lunch. I was glad 
at this, for I thought I should then see Arthur Merrion ; 
and I wanted to. I wanted to find out why I was so 
interested in him. 

You see, my reader, that it is I who stand under the 
command ; 

“Thou shalt tell all thy days and hours, and tell 
Thy times and ways and words of love, and say 
How one was dear and one desirable.” 

I stand under this command by no outer obligation 
but by the force of my own nature. The burden of 
sad sayings is too heavy on me, and I must share it 
with the world. Of my lovers and of the men and 
women I have come in contact with I can only tell 
what I have been, and what they have been to me. 
Of myself I will try to tell the whole as far as is possible ; 
to search my heart and write down the history of my 
emotions. I still am an enigma to myself, therefore I 
cannot pretend to explain others \ for it is quite certain 


126 the confessions of a woman 

that a human being, except of the most wooden order, 
presents different sides of their character to different peo- 
ple they come in contact with. That is one of the man- 
ifold reasons why we are so inexplicable. The persons 
of whom I have written so far are all fairly intelligible ; 
look at things from their point of view, and one can dis- 
cover their motives for action. But then it was just pos- 
sible to look at things from what seems to be their point 
of view (though one can never be sure). But in Arthur 
Merrion there was a subtlety of character which defied 
observation ; I was never able to probe his mind ; and 
to this hour I cannot say whether he was good or evil, 
whethei it was God or Devil (if either exist) which 
dominated him chiefly. I ought not to say so much 
about him here ; but having said so much I must tell 
you before I go on, that he was, and I suppose is, quite 
the best man, the man with most goodness in him that 
I have ever known. I think I have already told my 
reader that I do not know what goodness is ; but 
whatever it is, it existed in Arthur Merrion. 

I got up and dressed, and was surprised to find how 
long it took me and how weak I was. But I was able 
to go downstairs and sit at the table in the quiet, shady 
dining-room. How deep a quiet there is about these 
old English houses ! The thick solidity of the walls, 
the broad stairways, the rich old oak, the beauty of the 
architecture, give a sense of rest such as one feels in no 
other building. These are permanent homes ; not 
places for a sojourn of a year or so. This atmosphere 
soothed and pleased me ; it existed ^t fbe Court, and 


THE CONFESSIONS OF A WOMAN. 


127 

had much to do with my love for that place, but it was 
much stronger at Merrion House. Perhaps this was 
because the inmates had such worshipful feeling for 
it. Even on so slight an acquaintance I could see that 
the house and the family were objects of profound 
respect and reverence to Arthur Merrion and his mother. 

I observed Arthur Merrion very carefully during 
lunch, and came to the conclusion that he certainly 
interested me and I him. 

All through my acquaintance with him I committed 
one of those follies which the wisest of us commit at 
times. His society gave me pleasure, and I drew out 
the side of his character which interested me. I forgot 
that there was that other side which did not interest me 
— his devotion to his family and his religion. I forgot 
it, that is to say, later on when I wanted to forget it ! — 
for I have come to the conclusion that we ourselves 
and our own temperaments are the arbiters of what 
we call our destiny. Circun^stances are nowhere in this 
consideration, for the simple reason that a person of j 
strong will or fierce passions will break through any 
given set of circumstances and create new ones. It 
was my own temperament which made me drive head- 
long down that hill, as it was my own temperament 
which had made me leave Ashton, and become the um 
happy creature, joyless, who was known as the notori- 
ous Mrs. Ashton Harcourt. I lay no blame on God 01 
Providence, be it observed, or any other convenient ab- 
straction. We each create our own lives, and the combi 
nation of these lives makes the* world the bad place it is. 


128 the confessions of a woman. 

For we are all bad and the “ hungry generations/' as they 
follow each other, pass on the evil and would increase it 
if they could. But they cannot; the world seems to be 
like a chemical combination made at the commencement 
with so much of good and bad, of high and low, of know- 
ledge and ignorance, and it is continually balancing itself 
and keeping the forces even. That there should be so 
much good and bad, knowledge and ignorance in the 
world at the same time, maybe just as necessary to the 
existence of human beings with minds and morals, as 
any of the physical laws which we see acting are 
necessary to the existence of the natural world itself. 

I wondered very much why these people were so 
kind to me, why Mrs. Merrion was so gentle and so 
sweet I had learned to look on all my neighbors as 
my natural enemies since I first took possession of the 
Court I soon guessed, however, that Mrs. Merrion s 
religion made her take me in and befriend me when 
perhaps others would have hesitated. Good Catholics 
are very generous in the every-day affairs of life. And 
why ? Because they believe if they are not, St Peter 
will close the gates against them in spite of munificence 
to the church. Ah, well, why do I talk like this now ? 
I thought little indeed of the religion of these kind 
people in that happy hour, spent over the luncheon 
table. I only wondered whether Mrs. Merrion really 
liked me. I concluded she did, and I learned after- 
wards that it was so indeed, that I fascinated and inter- 
ested her. If this will explain what I mean better than 
what I have said, I was then just the woman she 


THE CONFESSIONS OF A WOMAN 


I 29 

would have given a great deal to have as a daughter 
and a companion if I had been of the true religion. But 
being what I was, a married woman living away from 
her husband, and the '‘notorious Mrs. Ashton Harcourt,^^ 
it was just this religion and its teaching of charity for fu- 
ture reward which alone supported her in gratifying her 
natural desire to befriend me. Worldly motives would 
have led her to send me home on a shutter from 
the green hill-side ; but with her existed that curious 
complication of character which arises from "other- 
worldly motives. 

We had the pleasantest talk imaginable, which was 
an enjoyment to us all, for the life the Merrions led 
was sufficiently lonely, while mine was that of the 
recluse. The society of cultured persons is always 
delightful under such circumstances. We lingered long, 
unwilling to break the charm that lay on us by moving. 
At half-past three I summoned my courage and said, 
" I think now I am quite able to go home, Mrs. 
Merrion.'' 

" Do you mean it } ” she said. 

" Yes, indeed. I am very, very happy here, but I 
have no longer an excuse to stay.'' 

"May I come and see your studio to-morrow.? " she 
asked after a moment's hesitation. The words seemed 
forced from her. Prudence and the desire for pleasure 
were fighting against each other in her. I knew then 
I had really won her heart, so far as it could be won. 

"Oh, please do," I answered. "But why not this 
afternoon, and have tea with rne ? 


130 


THE CONFESSIONS OF A WOMAN 


She looked at Arthur Merrion and then said decided- 
ly, “I should like it. I wonder if you feel strong 
enough to walk home by the path through the shrub- 
beries? You know there is a path which connects the 
two houses ? It is a very long drive round and would, 
I think, tire you more than the walk.'' 

‘'I have never explored that path,’' I said, '‘and 
should very much like to do so. I feel sure I can 
walk." 

She rose saying she must countermand some order — 
or make some arrangement — I forget what — if she was 
going out. I got up to go, and put on my hat. As I 
rose Arthur Merrion rose and came close to me. 

" May I come ?" he asked. The question was seri- 
ous. I had not given him any direct invitation. 

"Why, of course," I answered unsteadily. “ Please 
do." Why was my voice shaken as I spoke? It was 
shaken by something — a breath of different air.^ — the 
force of a current ? — whatever you like to call it — I have 
no name for it. That man had the power to make me 
quiver when he came near me, not with passion, not 
with any power over the senses, but with a keen, wild, 
^sweet emotion. Ah ! he was dear to me ! dear ! I would 
have shed my blood for him very gladly. I knew my 
presence shook him also ; I was just conscious of it, 
but little more. I could not observe or study him 
much, with these soft waters of fresh emotion suddenly 
making green my barren heart. 

Is all this magnetism ? I only ask ; I have no 


answer. 


THE CONFESSIONS OF A WOMAN 


131 

I went quickly from the room and came back again 
in my driving coat, but without my hat, which had been 
crushed. I laughed as I related my misfortune in this 
respect as we all stood at the open French window. 

'‘If you are afraid of cold,” said Mrs. Merrion, "I 
will get you some lace. But it does not matter at all 
otherwise, the path is quite hidden, and it is only like 
walking through the garden.'' 

“ Oh, I am not afraid of cold,'' I said. So we walked 
out of the open window, across the lawn and plunged 
into the shrubberies. The path was just wide enough 
for two ; and Mrs. Merrion and I walked side by side, 
Arthur Merrion following us, with a great hound which 
seemed to attend him everywhere as a matter of course. 
When we came to the fields the path went up to the 
hedge, and another high hawthorn hedge screened it on 
the inner side, the tallest branches waving overhead 
against the sky. These fields were the Merrion's prop- 
erty, and Mrs. Merrion was very proud of the high 
hawthorn hedges which she had succeeded in growing 
and preserving, in spite of the county being a fox- 
hunting one. Everywhere else, as she told me, she had 
had to submit to popular feeling and keep the hedges 
low ; but the old legends about this pathway had ap- 
pealed to the sympathies even of the fox-hunting 
squires, and she had been allowed to keep the old haw- 
thorns which grew up to the lower branches of the 
great old trees that stood here and there in the hedges. 
At the end of the fields we came to a wicket-gate, which 
I had often walked to, but never thought of walking 


THE CONFESSIONS OF A WOMAN, 


132 

beyond. It admitted us to my own shrubberies and 
presently we emerged upon my lawn. We entered the 
house at my morning-room window which, stood wide 
open as usual. As we went in it seemed to me as if a 
great gulf separated me from the last time I had been 
there, and as if I had entered upon a new life. And so 
indeed I had. 

We lingered, talking about the traditions of the 
Court, for Mrs. Merrion loved to dwell on these old 
memories ; and then went up to my studio. Here I 
discovered my new friends in a new light. Both were 
intelligent appreciators of art. When I say this I say 
what probably no one but an artist or an intelligent 
appreciator will understand. It is no wonder that we 
who work in earnest shut our doors upon the ordinary 
crowd, who know as much about art as do the urchins 
that gather round an artist sketching in the country. 
What a pleasure it was to have these people in my 
studio 1 They were familiar with the Vatican collection, 
and the private collections in Rome and Gepoa and 
elsewhere ; they had visited the Orvieto chapel and 
studied its Fresco of the Resurrection — they knew the 
Louvre as picture lovers know it, and, wonder of 
wonders ! (being English) knew the treasures of the 
National Gallery. And they had seen all these things 
with eyes that could see. But do not be afraid, rhy 
reader, I have promised not to write about art. It is 
too late in the day, now, when I am writing and 
gathering up the threads of my life. I write not as an 
artist but as a woman. 


The coNFESSioEts OF A Woman, 


133 

What a happy afternoon that was ! Arthur Merrion 
roused me to life, but it seemed to me a nobler life 
than I had ever known of before, save in my solitary 
self. His face, as he turned it towards me, was alight 
with a fine enthusiasm ; it grew positively beautiful to 
my eyes. I saw no passion in his face, none of the 
coarse passion which had wearied me of the thought of 
love. We had tea by the open window of my studio ; 
and when they rose to leave me I sat there in the 
twilight, dreaming — dreaming — dreaming ! Ah ! those 
dreams ! I half-yielded, half-resisted, the new stirring 
of my heart. Why should I altogether resist it, I asked 
myself. Was it not awakening the best part of me, the 
imaginative, idealistic side of my nature } Why should 
I suppress these 1 I have always faced my own feel- 
ings without disguise, and I did not hide from myself 
the attraction Arthur Merrion had for me. But I knew 
he was engaged ; I knew I was married ; I had con- 
fidence in myself. Do not laugh at this, my reader ; 
my confidence in myself was not wholly misplaced, as 
you will at once suppose. It was deeply shaken, I 
allow ; but then my acquaintance with Arthur Merrion 
brought such experiences as shook my faith in every- 
thing, from the throne of God to the truth of my own 
heart. I thought, in my folly, I had drunk the dregs 
of that strange cup we get of mingled love and misery 
and despair ; but it remained for Arthur Merrion to 
make me drink deeply of it ; and even he had not the 
power to make me drain the dregs. 


134 


THE CONFESSIONS OF A WOMAN. 


CHAPTER XIV. 

I WAS very weak for some time after this accident ; 
and did not go out at ail. The horses were all right, as 
Arthur Merrion had assured me while I was at Merrion 
House ; and they stood in their stalls and ate their heads 
off, except when Rogers took them out exercising. But 
he did not like driving them much ; he said I had made 
them wild ! I sat all day in my studio or in the morn- 
ing-room, and there received many a delightful visit 
from Mrs. Merrion alone, or from herself and her son to- 
gether. There was something in the character of these 
two, especially in the mother, which quieted me very 
much ; sTie was like the house she dwelt in, strong in 
built-up buttresses. I felt her religion always, though 
she seldom spoke of it. Probably just the same influence 
would have come to me from her son but for the mag- 
netism or electric current — or call it what you will — 
which continually passed between us and made me 
aware only of this side of his nature. From my present 
standpoint I can see that he must have been chiefly aware 
only of that side of my nature ; which should explain 
much and excuse some of what happened afterwards. 
But at the time I was convinced he saw me as the 
woman I am. Nothing could be more foolish than that 
sentence I have just written, for since I am an enigma 


THE CONFESSIONS OF A WOMAN 135 

to myself what else can I be to others ? But no other 
words will express my meaning, so I will let the sentence 
stand. The sum and substance of it all is that Arthur and 
I understood each other not at all, and idealized each 
other a great deal on our separate lines, and so fell into a 
fool's paradise. I think this is the history of most affairs 
of the heart. 

Mrs. Merrion went away on a visit, and at the accus- 
tomed hour of the afternoon call she and her son payed 
to me, her son came alone through the garden. He 
came in without comment, and I received him without 
comment. It would indeed have been ridiculous to make 
any : although my intuition told me that this was the 
commencement of something fresh. Why don't w'e usei 
our intuition more? It is a neglected sense, that is all,| 
and more accurate than any oracle. But perhaps it is 
because it warns us of danger that we do not care to use 
it. We live for sensation only ; and danger, pain, de- 
spair, all are part of what we live for. Looking back I 
can see that I should always have done just what I have 
done, even if I could have known what fierce suffering 
it would bring me. 

Arthur Merrion sat down by me and talked, in his 
gentle way, a manner that I cannot help thinking must 
have endeared him to any woman. It was winning to 
the last degree. Women cannot be blamed who are won 
by such a manner. There are so many brutes in the 
world — mere ploughman lovers — men like Captain Pon- 
tifex and — yes I could see it as soon as I was under the 
spell of Arthur Merrion's charm — men like Ashton Har- 


136 the confessions of a woman. 

court, are but as brutes to a woman of my keen, sensi- 
tive, intense temperament. In the thrilling and yet 
peaceful atmosphere that I dwelt in when in Arthur 
Merrion’s company I lived a new life. Day after day 
passed and still he came. We talked of art, of books, of 
a hundred things in which our tastes were sympathetic. 
At that time I could read Tennyson and Wordsworth, 
his favorite poets. My heart was not so embittered but 
what their gentle words had some meaning to me. And 
when he read to me, the peculiar melancholy of his tem- 
perament filled the verses with a fuller sweetness than 
they owned. He never read me Locksley Hall ; and I 
never asked him to. Other books — my daily compan- 
ions, hitherto — lay on my table or stood on the shelves 
close to my hand ; but he never touched them. Byron, 
Swinburne, even Shelley and Keats, were outside his 
horizon. But, ah ! how pleasant was the plot of mental 
ground into which he led me. It was surrounded by 
thick hedges, and only one soft bit of sky was visible ; 
but it was like a dream-spot, full of sweet fancies and 
melancholy pleasure. My heart melted in this soft at- 
mosphere ; nothing was seen vividly or acutely in it. 
Arthur Merrion did not use his brain to think with, and 
therefore he stilled mine and gave me rest. He took 
me to their chapel, and showed me its ancient beauties of 
architecture. The organist was practising when we were 
there, and the faint sensuousness of religion reached 
me as I stood in this colored, glowing, well-shaped, 
scented place, filled with passionate sound. Poor Emma ! 
Poor Madame Bovary ! when all else was exhausted she 


THE CONFESSIONS OF A WOMAN. 


137 

felt this emotion. I had not read Madame Bovary then, 
but afterwards when I read it, I recognized this sensuous 
ecstasy and understood that scene and its deep cynicism 
as I never could have done had I not touched on the 
experience. Arthur Merrion began to talk to me of re- 
ligion after this day ; and one afternoon he asked me to 
come to the early mass next morning, only for once, to 
please him. Of course I promised to and did — walk- 
ing between the wet grasses covered with light hoar- 
frost. For it was late autumn now ; and the brown leaves 
lay all down the path making so beautiful a carpet that 
I longed to beg the gardeners not to sweep them away. 

Arthur Merrion came to meet me up the narrow path. 
‘‘Ah, how glad my mother would be,” he said, “if you 
were to enter the true church ! ” I heard his words as in 
a dream ; my eyes were on his “ morning face.” How 
beautiful his face was in the early light, and inspired 
by these ideal thoughts ! I fancied I could go into a 
nunnery very contentedly if at the services I could look 
through the bars at his half-angelic face. The whole 
mystery of love lies in that almost unattainable thing, 
the bringing together of two persons in the same state, 
or in states which rouse and satisfy each other. Lord 
Byron's one mistake, to my mind, is when he says, 
“Who loves, raves — 'tis youth's frenzy ” — but how could 
he know better, for he never obtained the priceless thing 
which if it be followed by bitterest disillusionment yet 
makes of life a splendor for the time. He never met a 
woman who answered to him, never loved a woman 
with intellect ; all he did was to distract himself among 


138 the confessions of a woman 

what men in ordinary talk call women,'' a race they 
cannot live without, yet curse the while. This distrac- 
tion could afford no real interest to a soul like Byron's, 
but if he had ever met a woman — one real woman who 
could have understood him, he might have wished for 
immortality. For I am convinced now that the desire 
'for immortality arises only in those spirits who desire 
to continue an already known and dearly-prized sen- 
sation. 

And in this lies the overwhelming power of the Church 
for persons whose lives are not blighted by the demon 
thought. But I had not reached this point yet. The 
mere idea of indulging in religion even in the most ex- 
ternal manner, of yielding to its seductive soul-sensa- 
tions, however slightly, of testing it by the gentlest men- 
tal touches, pleased and allured me. Of course I was 
not so entirely foolish as not to know that this was chief- 
ly, if not entirely, due to Arthur Merrion's presence on 
the scene. I did not acknowledge it to myself, of course, 
but I knew it in that inner recess of my mind where 
secrets are kept even against one's own inquiries. In 
a glad, soft humor I walked on by Arthur's side and en- 
teied the chapel. How sweet the early sunshine was, 
and how sweet the scent of the air. Ah, yes, life still 
was strong on me, I loved it : Sweet was life to hear, 
and sweet to smell ! " I was in so glad a humor I lin- 
gered outside the chapel a moment, loth to enter it. 
But Arthur hurried me, and I yielded to him as I would 
to my better self. Within was a new world, a new 
mood, an ecstatic atmosphere. The altar was massed 


THE CONFESSIONS OF A WOMAN. 


139 

with flowers ; gray-blue clouds of incense moved softly 
in the air. The mingled perfumes fastened on the senses. 
The priest was standing at the altar, dressed in his gor- 
geous robes. I paid no attention to the Latin words he 
was murmuring. I yielded to the hitherto unknown 
sensations I was experiencing and sank on my knees 
before the altar. Arthur knelt down by my side. For 
a moment I felt the priest's eyes on me, and I looked at 
his face. It was the face of a wolf, and I recognized it 
even there, in that mystic haze of feeling. But he turned 
away again, and I forgot those hungry eyes and the out- 
standing cheek-bones, in the dim, warm pleasure of the 
moment. At last a touch from Arthur roused me, and 
I followed him to the door and out into the air. Why, 
how strange it was ! Where had I been ! This seemed 
to be another world, and it was with a sense of relief 
that brought tears to my eyes that I heard the fresh 
sweet voice of a blackbird calling. 

‘‘No — " I said, — no — I could never be a religieuse 
— I am too much a part of nature." 

“ That is because you are an artist," said Arthur, 
looking at me with a strange light in his eyes. “But 
you can find faith if you will." 

“Faith.?" I answered. “How strange and how 
delightful it must be to be able to accept doctrines and 
statements without proof. That is what faith is, is it 
not.?" 

“ May I bring Father Claircy to see you to-day.? " he 
asked, rather timidly. 

I hesitated. For once I followed what I call my 


140 


THE CONFESSIONS OF A WOMAN 


intuition — but I believe it is nothing but an outcry of 
the desires, speaking for themselves. ** No,'' I answered, 
shaking my head. ‘'Not at present. I do not feel 
religious."' 

I went my way home to breakfast in a quaint humor, 
playing with my own fancies. I had fed myself in my 
solitude on the Greek philosophers, on Darwin, on lat- 
ter-day materialistic writers, and, when I needed excite- 
ment, on the mental despair of Byron, and the hopeless 
materialism which lurks behind Swinburne's sonorous 
verse. I was accustomed to regard life as a hopeless 
thing, “despair was forced on me as a habit," and I 
knew of no possible light : more, although I had not 
plunged into the hateful depths which make that con- 
viction an essential part of the mind, yet I was con- 
vinced that there could be no possible light. It brought 
a smile to my lips as I sat at my solitary breakfast, to 
think of my playing with religion merely to please a 
lover. For this was really what it amounted to ; some 
women would have taken sensation for conviction 
and derived much pleasure from it ; but I could not. 
I have had the unhappiness all my life of a habit of 
calling things by their true names. Arthur had pre- 
pared a mist for me in that chapel ; but as soon as I 
stepped into the sunshine it fell from me and I knew 
it was only a mist ; the one fact left was that I loved 
Arthur Merrion. 

He came tome early that morning ; he said he could 
not keep away. It seemed as if his mood had changed, 
be was more excited than I had ever seen him. He 


THE CONFESSIONS OF A WOMAN, 14 1 

committed a boyish folly and repeated some words of 
Father Claircys. "‘He says you are too beautiful/' 
said Arthur with eyes of rapt devotion fixed on me. I 
doubt whether he had ever discovered that I was beau- 
tiful. For boys feel and experience ; they do not see. 
And Arthur Merrion was a boy — a kind of Galahad — a 
creature to win a woman's heart and break it — but en- 
tirely a boy, without experience or knowledge. I was 
amused at Father Claircy's discrimination, and intui- 
tively recognized a natural enemy in him. ‘^So he is 
trying to prejudice Arthur against me, is he } " I thought, 
and laughed to myself. 


142 


THE CONFESSIONS OF A WOMAN. 


CHAPTER XV. 

I NEVER let Arthur see my cynicism ; not because I 
wished to deceive him, but because I could not hurt 
him, any more than I could have hurt a bird that flew 
to me. His eager soul, which seemed indeed to fly to- 
wards me sometimes, was both tender and convinced. 
We walked in the garden and talked for hours that day ; 
very happy, very content. Indeed it seemed to me that 
a new youth was springing up within me ; and when I 
looked in my glass after he went away I saw a much 
softer and more beautiful face than I had seen there for 
a long, long while. But there was a grave thought in 
my mind, which kept me sitting in my chair without 
moving, turning it over and contemplating it from dif- 
ferent points of view. It was this : that clearly Arthur 
Merrion was in love with me. Whether he knew it or 
not, he was ; and he soon would know it. I did not 
hesitate to own to myself that I returned his feeling. 
That was not the point. The point was simply this — 
what was to be done 

Long hours I sat and thought ! These are the hours 
that age a woman’s heart. 

There was no future for us. As for me, I must either 
sink below the mysterious line which separates the vir- 
tuous woman from the woman who is sneered at ; or I 


THE CONFESSIONS OF A WOMAN. 


143 

must live alone with my work and my life, and care for 
nothing else. (I am repeating now the thoughts then 
in my mind ; I remember them very well, for this was 
the first crisis in my life when I had time to actually 
think out the situation instead of being forced into action 
instantly. ) That was the future I saw before me, with 
no way of escape. It did for a moment present itself to 
my mind that though the English law did not allow me 
to divorce Ashton, yet, if I followed his example, it did 
allow him to divorce me. One glance at this mode of 
freedom settled the question for me ; I would prefer any 
martyrdom to the degradation of facing the divorce 
court. I put that out of my thoughts with a shudder. 
What was left.? Nothing at all. I stared at my life, so 
to speak, in dismay. No opening ! None ! I had never 
realized this before, because I had not desired any 
more freedom than I possessed. But now there was 
Arthur's love — in my hands ! I raised my arms and let 
them fall again with a gesture of despair. My mind 
wandered back to Paul Phayre'e hopeless love for me, 
and again came that intense longing to realize true love, 
that emotion which was so vivid in him that it seemed to 
me a part of the spirit which fled from his body. Spirit .? 
Love ! Death ! Oh, what an array of words ! I looked 
around the great dim studio. Would Paul have left me 
to fight the hideous world alone if immortality were a 
fact ? Why was he not here, at my side .? Why had not 
his true love for me kept him with me ? No — there 
was nothing in the shadows of the room ; he was gone, 
absolutely, my best friend, my true lover, gone unto that 


THE CONFESSIONS OF A WOMAN, 


144 

bourne whence no traveller returns. For so it is. 
Since then I have dipped into the mystic places of spir- 
itualism, where the unhappy ones go to hear of their 
dead. To some comes conviction that their dead still 
live ; and they are to be reckoned very fortunate. A 
differently constituted mind can only see in the phenom- 
ena something which cannot be explained, but which is 
yet absolutely within the realm of matter and brain-con- 
sciousness, and no proof of the immortality of the spirit. 
If Paul Phayre's shape had approached me then, and 
spoken to me with his voice, doubtless I should have be- 
lieved it was his spirit that was with me. But it did not. 
Such visions seldom come when called for. I grew so 
weary with the emotions of the day and the thoughts I 
had endured, that at last I fell asleep in my chair. I slept 
soundly, and dreamed a vivid dream, in which I saw and 
felt myself walking in a garden of flowers with Arthur 
Merrion's hand in mine. I awoke with a start, still so 
lost in the dream that I could scarcely believe Arthur was 
not in the room. But the sound that startled me was 
only the maid bringing in lights. I rose with a weary 
sigh and looked out of the window into the twilight. 
Sad indeed I was, for my bitter thoughts came back on 
me with a rush. How I clung to him ! — and how utter- 
ly I was separated from him. I wandered about the 
room wearily, for the mind distraught soon dulls the 
body, and I did not know what to do with myself. 
Presently the maid came tome with a note. Its appear- 
ance was unfamiliar to me and I took it up rather 
doubtfully. 


THE CONFESSIONS OF A WOMAN. 


H5 

“ From Merrion House, Madam,'' said the maid. 
Merrion House ! Who could it be from but Arthur him- 
self.? Why should he write to me.? Why was fate so 
quick, so hurried in its action. I held the square white 
envelope in my hand, afraid to open it. Of course it 
might be only some trifle — perhaps his mother had 
come home, and this was to ask me to come to lunch 
to-morrow. Yet, oh ! how my heart sank and then 
leaped, and then began to beat loudly. I opened the 
envelope in a hurry at last, and dropped it while I held 
the note within up to the light and turned to look at the 
signature — ^Arthur Merrion. Yes, it was what I feared, | 
what I hoped, what I hungered for — a love-letter. One 
glance told me that ; and I instantly covered the paper 
with kisses, before I could stay to read what was writ- 
ten there. Women do not like confessing when their 
hearts are hungry and when a mere scrap of note-paper 
written by one particular hand is like manna from 
Heaven to them ; but I am confessing all. I had never 
guessed till that minute how hungry I was. Why, I 
had been starving ! At last I sat down and slowly read 
the note through. 

I have not got that note ; I burned that and every 
other he wrote me, one time which I will tell of later on, 
when this, the happy hour I was now living through, 
was one of those old hours which belong to this burden 
of sad sayings. 

He told me that he had fallen asleep in the great 
dark library, and that he fancied he dreamed of me, 
but could not remember ; that when he awoke in the 

lO 


146 the confessions of a woman. 

darkness there was a scent of flowers and a presence — 
my hand was on his, he heard me sigh and felt me by 
his side. It was gone — gone in an instant — but it had 
changed and enlightened him. He knew that he loved 
me — that he could never live without me. When might 
he come and speak.? “Write to me to-night — write to 
me, write to me ! or else come out to the wicket, where 
I shall wait in hope.” 

I let the letter fall from my hand to the floor and sat 
there looking at it in a deep perplexity and pain of mind 
which almost drowned my sense of new happiness. 
What was to be done ? The crisis had come. How 
was I to face it.? At last I found that sitting there did 
me no good ; I found no illumination. I snatched up 
the letter, and going to my room put a shawl round 
me. “Write to him,” I kept saying to myself, “is he 
mad to think that I can send a servant to find him 
leaning on that wicket gate .? ” This trivial thought 
seemed to occupy my whole mind ; so it often happens 
in an emergency, when the brain refuses to act in the 
face of a terrible decision, a decision which seems too 
serious, to be beyond its power. My one thought was 
that by going out into the garden myself I might screen 
this sudden folly of his from observation. 

I went out at the open window, which was never 
closed till late, for I always loved wandering in and 
out of the garden. So it was very easy for me, without 
its appearing at all unusual, to go out and cross the 
lawn and go down to the wicket gate. And as I came 
near it — I could not see in the dimness — someone 


THE CONFESSIONS OF A WOMAN 


147 

leaned over and ^.ought for my hands and took them 
in his and pressed them. 

Oh, how little most men know of the value of gentle- 
ness in love ! the rough grasp, the fierce kiss, scorch 
and hurt a sensitive woman. The intensity of gentle- 
ness belongs only to those who know love as an art ; 
but in some men it is inborn, if not perfected. Arthur 
Merrion's touch thrilled because of its extraordinary 
tenderness. His silence spoke much more than any 
torrent of heated words. And then one hand left mine 
and I felt its delicate contact with my throat and face. 

‘Hs it possible.? '' he said in a whisper. 

Is what possible ? I asked. 

‘‘That you love me .? 

“How can I say so.? You know if I do I cannot 
confess it. Let this moment be enough — there must 
be no more.'' 

“Ah, yes, like this. I will ask nothing more of you. 
But do not send me away — do not say I may not be with 
you — I cannot bear it — I shall die. It is all a blank 
where you are not. Oh, how glad I am that I have 
found my heart and opened it to you, and that I have 
this moment at least. 

I drew back and tried to free myself, but then his 
grasp grew strong. I know I was weak, but then I 
loved him ; so I let him draw me close again and touch 
my face and presently my mouth, very gently. 

“I wonder," he said in a low voice, “I wonder why 
God made women's skins so soft." 

Love is a sufficient excuse for anything and it excused 


148 THE CONFESSIONS OF A WOMAN. 

and excuses me for that folly of lingering with him. But 
nothing can excuse me for my terrible habit of thinking. 
As he spoke I thought of Waldo’s cry in ‘‘The Story of 
an African Farm,” “There is no God ! ” and it seemed 
to me so much greater than this subtlety of laying the 
responsibility on God of a temptation. There is little 
analogy between the two utterances; but just enough 
to cut the mind in a flash of thought — for that was all it 
was. I put it by instantly, for I loved Arthur Merrion, 
and would not allow myself to criticise him. 

And now let me tell you, my reader, that everyone 
you meet with unmasks themselves, and reveals their 
true character to you at one time or other ; generally 
very often ; and that it is your fault if you will not take 
them at their own valuation, if you will insist on ideal- 
izing them and refusing to listen to them when they 
speak naturally — perhaps even wishing you to know 
what they are. But of course you will go on idealizing, 
as I did then. Many and many a time did Arthur show 
me how absolutely he was a puppet in the hands of his 
God, of his religion, of his priest ; but 1 would not see 
it, would not recognize it, pushed it away from me 
always because I loved him. “Sweet was life to hear, 
and sweet to smell ! ” Who is to resist this .? None. The 
greatest fall before this overwhelming temptation ; when 
there is one being in the world whose presence makes 
the sky blue, the sun shine, in spite of bad weather ; 
who makes the earth fragrant and the air an intoxica- 
tion. Who is to resist this, and to pause and think. 
Would it be possible to admire and like the one who 


THE CONFESSIONS OF A WOMAN, 


149 

could resist. I say no, for they are inhuman in their 
actions. And they are profoundly foolish, for they 
sacrifice the moment (which alone we are certain of) 
for an ideal standard — a thing which exists only in their 
own minds, which they cannot show or even be sure 
of retaining, which gives them neither comfort nor hap- 
piness. 

The wicket gate was fastened, and Arthur was lean- 
ing upon it. He put his hand now on the latch, to 
open it. I put my hand on his and stayed him. 

‘‘No,” I said; “I must go in. And you go home 
and think — or pray. You have a God ; ask him what 
we are to do.” 

“I will spend the night in the chapel,” he answered, 
“and ask Him all night. May I come and tell you in 
the morning } ” 

“ If you get an answer, yes,” I said, and a half smile 
came on my lips. But I would not think against him ; 
I wanted to think with him, to blind myself, to follow 
him. Oh, yes, women are all like this, even the most 
sensible, when they are in love for the first time. One 
stands as it were before a golden sea, and longs to 
plunge in completely, without thought, recklessly, and 
to forget all else. 

I drew myself away from Arthur, and he gently sur- 
rendered me. I heard him sigh, — that was all. I went 
back through the shrubberies and crossed the lawn. The 
servants were shutting up the house, so I was just in 
time to go quietly in. I went up to my studio. No 
other room in the house seemed big enough for me. 


150 


THE CONFESSIONS OF A WOMAN 


I flung open the window and stood in the balcony 
looking up at the stars. It was one of those marvellous 
nights that quell the spirit and make the soul tremble 
j and wonder ; when all the wide, dark canopy is hung 
with stars and the earth appears dwarfed to nothing- 
ness, and one’s self — to an atom ; one’s affairs — to a 
matter of no import. When I look upon one of these 
grand night-skies, it seems as if then only is one ad- 
mitted for the brief hour to any consciousness of the 
immensity of material life. How great it is ! How 
helpless one stands in the face of it ! What matters the 
life of one woman on one planet, amid the innumerable 
lives that swarm on it. Oh, the breath of the dark 
night, and the silence of the marvellous stars, and the 
remoteness of the commonplace world of a few human 
beings whose dictum seems all-important in the com- 
mon daylight ! What danger there is in such a mo- 
ment for romantic natures, which are easily lifted out 
of the commonplace and readily recognize their own 
unimportance in the great vortex of existence. These 
moments sweep away the landmarks of the mind, fixed 
there by social custom. 

‘ ‘ In such a night 
Stood Dido with a willow in her hand 
Upon the wild seabanks, and waft her love 
To come again to Carthage.’’ 

had no willow-wand : nor did [I need it. Arthur 
Merrion was praying in the chapel. I could go to him. 
First came the wild sweet sense of utter irresponsibility 
caught from the immensity of the heavens, and the 
littleness of my own being ; what mattered I more than 


THE CONFESSIONS OF A WOMAN 15 1 

the wren or the ant, so that I lived and afterwards died ? 
But no — I dropped my eyes and looked down upon the 
earth. That chapel ! Religion ! How dark it all was 
to me ! How dark was life itself. I seemed to be like 
one groping hopelessly. And, after all, those stars had 
no message for me ; they were so far away, too far- 
away ; the heavens were so great, too great. My 
dwarfed soul shrank back into itself, chilled. I had to 
live my own life ; I could not live with the stars. I 
must spend the night with my thoughts ; Arthur would 
spend his with his God ! Well, let him decide, for 
he had at least the illusion which gathers the immense 
silence of existence into a narrow mental conception, and 
calls it God and gives it power to answer and decree. 

I went to my room and lay on my bed, and forcibly 
withheld myself from the vision of greatness which had 
fallen on me. I made myself dwell in emotion ; I re- 
called the thrill of Arthur s touch, its gentleness, its in- 
finite tenderness. How happy it made me to recall 
it ! I had given myself up to Ashton Harcourfs pas- 
sion ; how many women do the same, and think they 
know what love is, while they are really living like the 
brutes, in unconsciousness and ignorance, letting the 
coarse animal eat up all the finer part, the subleties 
which penetrate to the marrow of the being and live 
like fire in the memory. Arthur Merrion's first touch 
upon my hand had made me love him ; instead of 
being scorched as by fire, a well-spring of sweet, happy 
waters had burst forth in my own heart. , I loved. I 
was so happy in the consciousness, so given up to the 


152 


The confessions of a woman 


moment, that I lay half the night between sleeping an 
waking, too content to let my consciousness quite leave 
me, so content that I had no weariness or restlessness 
upon me. I was so glad that I could refuse to think, 
and it seemed as if I had a sweet eternity to dream in 
before the morn would break. I was in that ectasy of 
the spirit when I could well have said : — 

“ I cannot see what flowers are at my feet, 

Nor what soft incense hangs upon the boughs, 

But, in embalmed darkness, guess each sweet. 

Ah, me ! this is the place where love wanders — a fra- 
grant solitary meadow, where is no light, and the eyes 
meet nothing but embalmed darkness. It is well to 
say that sensation (which is love) can be found in 
daylight, with the common herd, among the ruck of 
men and of women. It is not so. There is every 
gradation, indeed ; and all gradations may be called 
love, or at least passion ; but those who know the mys- 
teries of the temple know that His only in embalmed 
darkness that love worthy of the name can dwell. 
Swinburne calls it a twilight. But there is an added 
truth in the word embalmed. 

“With fresh dews embalmed the earth,’* 

came to my memory as I lay there half-thinking and 
half-feeling ; and indeed this day had to me brought 
fresh dews to my dead heart, dead as the earth with- 
out this moistness of the morning. At last I fell asleep, 
all thought gone but one, ''Give me my Romeo?'' — 
yes, that. For I was in love for the first time, enacting 


THE COHEESSIONS of A WOMAH, 


153 

the boy and girl love story of Romeo and Juliet. Like 
Juliet I was ready to call for Romeo from my balcony ; 
or to die for him gladly. So foolish, so young, so inex- 
perienced was I ! Still, I was learning ; and it seems 
as if there is some object in learning, weighing, con- 
sidering. Though to what end I know not, nor can 
guess. 

But it is very sure that the story of Romeo and Juliet 
is only the story of boy and girl passion ; sure it is 
also that this must end, if not by death, by change ; 
sure also that there others to replace — only one or two 
perhaps, and those to be waited for ; and perhaps the 
one that comes latest may be less simply passionate, 
but truer, because more cynical and more subtle. 


»54 


THE CONFESSIONS OF A IVOMAN. 


CHAPTER XVI. 

Well, the morning broke, of course. I did not say 
then, as I have so often said since, 

‘‘Would God the night were ended, 

Would God the day were done ! ’ ’ 

but I looked in some instinctive dismay at the broad 
daylight, and 'w^ondered, in a sort of dim fear, what 
this day would bring for me. I had suffered enough 
to know that love is a thing to be cherished dearly ; 
that at any moment it may fly from its cage, let the 
door be not so much as ajar, but only unlatched. What 
had his God said to Arthur Merrion } 

I arose slowly, trying to keep myself content within 
the embalmed darkness of the happy night ; and before 
I was dressed I heard that Arthur Merrion was come 
and was waiting for me in the breakfast-room. I 
went down quietly, and very quietly entered the room. 
Truth to tell, I had hardly the courage to enter it. 
Arthur was standing by the wdndow ; he turned to me, 
and I met gleaming eyes and saw a strangely serious 
face. How blind Love is indeed ! I could see the 
fanatic in Father Claircy's face, but not in Arthur's, 
because I loved him. He came towards me, but did 
not even touch my hand. I sat down and said Speak !"* 


THE CONFESSIONS OF A WOMAN 


155 

He came and sat beside me, leaning forward, and 
sometimes looking up into my face with those gleaming 
eyes. 

I spent all night in the chapel,'' he said in his low, 
melodious voice. Where did you spend it? " 

‘‘With the stars," I answered. This was not quite 
true, but it was all the answer I could make. For 
just such a reason, perhaps, many a half-truth, or even 
a lie is told. I knew he was in a condition which could 
not be sympathetic with mine, and that it was useless 
to try and reproduce my moods to him. 

“ I was in prayer," he said, “and in reverie; and 
nearly all night it seemed dark and hopeless, and no 
answer came. Perhaps it waa the sin in my heart. 
But near the dawn it was as if my heart melted ; and 
I knew that dishonor to you was absolute sin to me, 
and that it could never be. But you are pure for me, 
like the angels — you are a lily, a thing of whiteness, a 
good woman, a perfect woman — I knew I might stay 
beside you, touch your hand, talk with you, and do no 
harm — I knew it then — that I should only learn good 
from you and from being with you. You are not of 
the true religion, but you are for me as an angel. Let 
me worship you ; I ask for nothing else." 

I made no answer, but sat looking out at the grass 
and the waving trees and the gray-blue sky above. 
Where were the stars and the soul-maddening im- 
mensity.'^ Gone, for a narrow horizon, a garden plot, 
a park. Just for one moment the “ I — I " of his speech 
jarred on my ear and struck my heart It was hi^ sin 


156 THE CONFESSIONS OF A WOMAN. 

he feared ; of me he recked nothing, but idealized me 
into that which he wanted. Whether I might desire 
more love than this — did he care.*^ Whether I ran as 
much risk of public dishonor from so much association 
with him as he asked — as if he had asked me to take his 
whole love and face all the consequences — did he reckon 
that.^ No. Or if he did he silenced and forgot those 
voices. As I silenced and forgot those that spoke to 
me. For when he put his hand on mine and pressed 
it, I laid my other hand on his. I fell back in my chair 
and said nothing. The compact was made in silence. 

When he left me that day I ordered the horses out 
for the first time since my accident and went for a long 
drive. Already, in the first happy hours of my love, 
something baleful but unacknowledged, was madden- 
ing me. Do not imagine I blame Arthur alone for the 
unhappy history of our love — a love perfectly innocent, 
according to the ideas of the world, yet baleful — happy 
to the last degree, yet most unhappy, too. No, do not 
imagine I blame him only, my reader. I blame my- 
self even more. Indeed I think women are as a rule 
more to be blamed than men, in the loves, guilty or 
guiltless, which give life its savor. Please understand 
that when I say women now, I do not mean that crowd 
of Faustines which men mean when they use this 
plural ; I mean sensitive, romantic women like myself, 
with brain and heart both developed and at high pres- 
sure. Men suffer from quite simple emotions com- 
pared to those we suffer from ; we are so much more 
complex, we have so many more points of view to 


THE CONFESSIONS OF A WOMAN 


157 


regard a thing from. And our education baffles us ; 
we have to outlive so much of it before we understand 
the view men take of love and of the mere relations of 
the sexes. Arthur was an unusual type I think ; worse 
and better than most men. Worse because of his 
religion — better because of his refinement. 

Was he better — or only more fascinating to the 
senses than the others } 

I turned the horses and drove home in a gloomy 
humor. 

When I went indoors I found a letter from Svenski. 

I took it up and put it down once or twice, and 
walked about the room, drawing off my gloves. My 
head was beating. At last I opened it and stood by the 
window to read it : — 

I have seen you again ; it is the second time ; this 
is curious, and I do not see why it should be so. 

I have tried to write to you and I cannot. Some- 
thing is wanting. Oh, iff could see you in the body ! — 
But now for this strange appearance. I saw you 
plainly and I said to you — ‘You are going to ex- 
perience, in a little while, a radical change, affecting 
both your life and your opinions.' You, naturally, 
seemed incredulous, but I think it will prove so. You 
then said ‘Why don't you write to me ? ' To which I 
replied I should do so as soon as this change occurred. 
That was all that passed, though it was very strongly 
expressed. I presume you have no recollection of it. 

Well, I cannot write, after all, and it would be 


158 the confessions of a woman 

foolish to try, and say nothing. I am not a narrator of 
daily hum-drum. I am not, and have not for long, 
painted anything that interested me. There will be a 
change by-and-by, and then we shall meet. 

SVENSKI.'' 

I stood at the window with the letter in my hand, 
pondering it earnestly. What did these dreams of me — 
these dreams of my own — these appearances of me, 
mean ? I could not answer the question. These things 
have only happened with those who loved me better 
than life itself — at the time when they loved me in this 
way. If I were not telling the truth I should not relate 
these things ; because I am not a spiritualist, and it is 
so easy to be misunderstood. If you ask me to explain 
them, I can but ask you to explain to me why the fire 
burns, why the sun shines, why we live. 

Who knows most, knows nothing."' 

You have others who love you," said a voice at my 
side. I can read in your face that the letter you hold 
is a love-letter." 

From a man whom I do not love," I answered, 
stepping into the room and putting the letter on the 
table. 

'' Then why let him write to you.?" he asked ; and 
the voice had hardened. I turned quickly and looked 
at him. 

'' Surely, Arthur, you are not jealous! That is im- 
possible." 

He paused a moment 


THE CONFESSIONS OF A WOMAN 159 

‘‘You mean/' he said, “ that such relations as ours 
give me no right to be jealous of you? " 

“ I mean nothing of the kind," I said passionately. 
“ I mean that you ought to know me better than to 
harbor suspicions." 

“Can I read the letter? " 

“ If you like — "I said — and then “No, the writer^s 
name is there and I have no right to let you see it." 

“ The secret is safe with me," he said gravely, and 
took up the letter. He read it twice and then put it 
down again. 

“ You know your name is fatally coupled with 
Svenski," he said. 

“ There is no reason for it," I answered. “ If you 
do not choose to believe me, do not." 

“ What are you going to do ? " he asked. 

“ About what? " 

“About that letter." 

“I shall not answer it. I cannot be answerable for 
Svenski's hallucinations." 

He came and sat down by me. 

“ I am suffering ! " he said. “ Make me believe you 
do not care for Svenski." 

“ Make you believe it," I exclaimed. “ Why, how 
can you Imagine such a thing ? " 

He dropped his head on his hands and sat there 
gloomily. Presently he looked up at me. His face was 
sweeter than I had ever seen it. 

“ I am trying to use myself to the idea that when you 
are tired of me you will go to Svenski — trying to use 


i6o the confessions of a woman 

myself to the bitterness of it — otherwise it may kill 
me. ” 

And to save yourself from future pain you insult 
me now ! ” I exclaimed. 

‘‘ Ah, yes — forgive me,'' he said in that soft voice no 
woman could resist. He put his hand on mine. 

“ I will forget," he murmured. I will dream. You 
are an angel of light — you are a lily, pure as the snow, 
my lily — my worshipped lily, the flower on my altar. 
Oh, how I hate ever to be away from you I " 


THE CONFESSIONS OF A WOMAN 


l6l 


CHAPTER XVII. 


I LOCKED up Svenski's letter in my writing-table when 
Arthur had gone. 

And then — I forgot it — and really did not answer it. 
I suppose this was treating him very badly. I should 
not have thought so at the time if I had thought about it; 
and looking back now I cannot altogether blame myself. 
I have just copied the letter, and that has made me 
think about it ; really it does not seem like a letter that 
necessitated a reply. It was assertive — it implied that 
I desired to hear from him — it did not ask me to write. 
If he had asked me to write I suppose I should have 
done so. I believe Svenski considered it heartless of me 
that I did not reply. This is one of the great difficulties 
in affairs of the heart — people are in different moods, 
and what seems right to one seems wrong to the other 
— and then each may change, and in an altered humor 
may view the whole matter in a new light. At all 
events I did not imagine Svenski expected me to write. 
He prophesied that when I changed we should meet. 

Meantime my mind was full of other matters. Mrs. 
Merrion returned that same day, and sent a mes- 
sage to ask me if I would come to dinner. I went, and 
found her kinder to me than ever. What I feared was 
that si ' 'he change in Arthur — that gleam 



It 


1 62 the confessions of a woman. 

in his eyes whenever they rested on me. But she ap- 
peared perfectly oblivious, so I concluded that this 
change was only visible to myself. 

When I walked home it was natural that Arthur should 
come with me, and it happened so, without comment, 
Mrs. Merrion came part of the way and then, saying 
she was tired, turned back. Arthur and I walked alone 
up the narrow pathway. At the wicket-gate we paused ; 
until then we had been silent. One of the subtle charms 
of our intercourse was that we could be silent together 
for so long. This is only possible where people are in 
real sympathy — or seem to he. Yes, that always 

comes in. That idea of the Indian philosopher's, that the 
whole of existence is a delusion, is really after all one of 
the most reasonable I know of. For we consider we 
have reached a hard fact in life when a friend has de- 
ceived us. But he only seems to have deceived us ; we 
might have understood long ago if we had not closed 
our eyes to the truth. Ah, that I could stop myself 
from this discursiveness which must weary you, reader, 
very much. But I cannot stop myself ; it is part of my 
nature, and I promise to show myself as much like I 
really am as is in any way possible. 

Well, we stood at the wicket-gate, one of my hands 
held between Arthur s two; held so gently yet so ten- 
derly that I cannot think of it even now without that 
strange memory of past love which is half-pleasure and 
half-pain. 

^‘Will you let me come in the morning, to-morrow?" 
he asked 


THE CONFESSIONS OF A WOMAN 163 

*'Why, of course/' I said. 

This was my folly. He had often come in the morn- 
ing when Mrs. Merrion was away. I did not discover 
till some days later what his question had meant. That 
answer meant something to him which it had not meant 
to me ; for he suddenly drew me towards him and kissed 
my mouth. It was only a moment — and then he had 
gone down the path, out of sight and hearing, and I stood 
alone by the gate, faint and sick, my heart leaping. 
What was before me ? What had I to meet ? This man 
was born with the knowledge of love, just as other men 
are born only with the knowledge of lust — or reverse 
the words if you will, I care not. But he had the power 
in touching my lips with his to make my very soul follow 
him as he left me. “This must never be again," I 
cried out to myself “or I shall be helpless in his hands 
— and yet — poor wretch that I am, how can I resist it? 
— having tasted it once, what pleasure is there in life 
without it ? " 

I hurried indoors and went up to my studio. The 
large Psyche-glass which used to stand in the next room 
had been brought in there for me to see my difficult 
“movement" picture reflected. I went and stood in 
front of this glass. The two halves of my brain were I 
talking to each other, and it seemed to make the con- * 
versation easier to look at the image of myself. How 
white I was ! How dark my hair ! My eyes were 
sunken, black, and gleamed like stars. I looked my- 
self up and down critically. I was terribly thin ; I had 
none of the beauties commonly supposed to excite ad- 


1 64 the confessions of a woman. 

miration or love. But I knew, as I stood there looking 
on myself with this cold eye, that I possessed some- 
thing greater than beauty — power, which I could put on 
to canvas or use upon men and women. “This is so,” 
I exclaimed (I, myself, talking to my other self) “and 
yet you are a mere babe in the hands of that boy.” I 
did indeed, look on myself with a cold eye, fori despised 
myself heartily. “You, the artist, the woman who has 
conquered Time and made herself Immortal, to be so 
played upon ! Sensation ; yes, that is it. I will think.” 

I sat down and tried deliberately to face myself. But 
I could not. I was in sensation ; the memory of that 
moment interfered continually between my two selves 
and stopped the argument with its clamor. “Oh, God, 
I love him,” I could only say to myself over and over 
again. And then suddenly, by one of the strange tran- 
sitions through which I often pass, especially when I 
am alone, I burst out laughing. I had remembered an 
apt Americanism which applied to my pious ejaculation. 
“ Why do you call on a stranger ? ” an American said 
one day in my hearing to a man who had exclaimed 
“Good God.” 

The thing just fitted my over-excited humor. Why, 
indeed.'^ “There is no God,” says Waldo. Indeed, no ! 
One of the deep rushes of cynical unbelief came over 
me. How unjust the world is ! How impartial the 
forces that rule it, or are part of it ! That Father in 
Heaven, of whom Jesus spoke, makes his sun to rise on 
the evil and the good, and sendeth rain on the just and 
the unjust 1 Did he not say, be better than the publicans. 


THE CONFESSIONS OF A WOMAN. 165 

and believe yourself perfect, for there is comfort in 
that? Oh, the subtlety of that doctrine ! Oh, the weak- 
ness, the dark, terrible weakness of human nature to 
which it appeals I It appealed to me now, quite sud- 
denly, right in the strong glare of my cynicism. Suppose 
I study their religion ? Shall I see if there is anything 
in it? Shall I learn to be good, like Mrs. Merrion? 
Then I can give up what I want, perhaps, without so 
much suffering. 

For I knew that I must stand back from Arthur, not 
because of virtue, but because of circumstances. He 
could never be anything but my friend. I resolved and 
determined that this should be, at all costs. And then, 
my mind wearied out and sickened with the mental 
struggle, I fell back on the thought of religion and 
wondered vaguely, as in a dream or dim ecstasy, 
whether there really was anything in goodness — whether 
I could be good, and happy as good people are. I knew 
very well that the goodness born of religion was quite 
different from the standard I had lived up to hitherto— 
an ideal standard, yet one which necessitated my facing 
facts straightforwardly. Religious people speak a me- 
lodious language which clothes and veils the facts of 
life. 

The next morning, Arthur came in at the morning- 
room window, soon after I had come down. His eyes 
had a stranger look in them than I had ever seen 
before — a gleam, but it was not only a gleam of 
passion ; there was another more subtle emotion mixed 
with it 


1 66 , the confessions of a woman 

He stooped over me. I put him back and rose to my 
feet. 

“ Never again, Arthur,” I said in a low voice; ‘‘ you 
must never kiss me again ; remember that.” 

‘‘Why? ” he said ; “ that kiss has lain on my lips all 
night and given me a happiness I have never known 
before.” 

“ You are a man,” I said, “ do not compel me to take 
the man's part. It is for you to stand back. Step back 
to where you were before last night, and all will be 
well.” 

“ No, no,” he said, in a voice of intense pain, “ let 
me have a little time of happiness. The rest of my life 
is lost, given away, hopelessly sacrificed.” 

I looked earnestly at him. It was the first time he had 
ever spoken to me like this. I resolved to keep cool if 
it were possible. 

“ Remember,” I said ; “ my life is already sacrificed. 
There can be no time of happiness for me.” 

He flung himself down in a chair, in an attitude that 
spoke of despair, looking at me as I stood there, all the 
while. I knew he could not answer as a man of the 
world would have done ; he was a religeux through and 
through. Religion was fibre of his fibre. Presently he 
spoke very softly. 

“Cannot you come into the Church ?” 

“ I might," I answered, “ if only to be in sympathy 
with you. It is necessary that you should leave me 
very soon. You have your life marked out for you. It 
is impossible for the state of things existing between us 


THE CONFESSIONS OF A WOMAN 167 

to continue, in your new condition of feeling — and mine; 
for I do not pretend to make any disguise. Perhaps I 
can find some comfort in your religion. I will try.” 

Arthur got up and moved across the room to the win- 
dow as if he wanted air ; then he swerved and came 
straight to me. He stood close tome, not really touch- 
ing me, but looking at me. I turned and faced him. 
Then I knew the meaning, for the first time, of that 
wonderful line, ‘‘^The sea hath bounds, but deep desire 
hath none. ” I read it in his eyes ; and all my nature 
answered to his. 

‘‘Please go,” I said, “remember that we are neither 
of us free. Will you go ? ” 

He went without a word. And I sat down in my ac- 
customed chair, and wondered vaguely whether my life 
was really to be one prolonged agony? What more 
was in store for me. 

Mrs. Merrion came in in the afternoon, and I found it 
hard to talk to her. She told me I was looking ill. She 
asked me to dinner, but I said I felt ill, and refused to 
go. Ah ! it goes hard to tell it — but that evening after 
my solitary dinner, I heard Arthur's step on the gravel 
path and I went and shut the windows. And then I 
went to my room and lay down, and the tears came and 
helped me. I kept on saying to myself, “I must go 
away — I must stop it — I can only do it by going away 
— I must go.'^ 

I tried to strengthen my resolution by telling my maid 
when she came in that I was feeling ill again and that 
I thought I would go away for a change, perhaps to 


1 68 the confessions of a woman 

Paris ; and that she had better prepare, as I might de- 
cide to go at any moment. I felt as if I were already 
on the way when I had given this order, poor fool that 
I was. However, the order was carried out, and my 
trunks remained in the state of being half-packed day 
after day, till suddenly, after many more events had 
occurred, they were packed in earnest. 

The next morning there was almost a repetition of the 
same scene, and the next, and the next. It tried me 
sorely ; for having made up my mind to keep my 
ground I did it. After these two or three mornings 
Arthur said no more ; but he came and talked in a 
vacant, distracted way about the old subjects which used 
to interest us ; looking at me the while with haggard 
eyes. His lips were drawn and white ; he was altering 
visibly. As for me I had not strength to go, and put 
an end to it. While it was just possible I must remain 
and enjoy. For I loved him ; and even these painful 
meetings were food to me, were part of the dear hour of 
this love, made life sweet to hear and sweet to smell. 
For desire is pain, let it come how it will. Tis the one 
thing certain as Death, and we have to let it come as it 
will. Pleasure and pain are indistinguishable to those 
who can suffer the extremes of either. It is sensation, 
that is all. It was during this awful time that I began 
to read Dolores. And at last my suffering became so 
intolerable that I could not work or think, or read any- 
thing but Childe Harold and Dolores. Then at last the 
aspiration and loftiness of Childe Harold hurt me, and 
I put the book back quickly every time my hand fell on 


XHE CONFESSIONS OF A WOMAN 169 

it — and I tound comfort only in Dolores, that terrible 
utterance of the baffled soul, that confession that matter 
only, lustful or lustless, is all that we can know of. I fit 
for entering the true Church, when Byron's soaring 
had become unendurable to me ! It was then too, that 
I acquired the habit of laughing aloud at my thoughts 
when I was alone. I think I frightened the servants at 
first, but they got used to it. 

Two hours of keen, painful, wild happiness each 
morning, merely because of Arthur Merrion's presence 
in the room ; and the rest of the day given up to despair, 
misery, vacancy ; sometimes the weary mind taking 
refuge in Dolores, sometimes roused to a sense of the 
folly of the situation and fastening on the idea of taking 
flight that very instant. This idea, when it came on me 
as a duty, would rouse me from my chair, and I would 
go to the door and think to give the order and see what 
train I could catch ! and then sickening indecision would 
take hold of me and drive me back, and it would end 
only in my walking about the room like a mad creature, 
till I had worn out the mood of action, and calmed my- 
self to that dulness in which one waits for either pleasure 
or pain to come again. 


170 


THE CONFESSIONS OF A WOMAN. 


CHAPTER XVIIL 

Quite unexpectedly to me something happened which 
made a great, terrible mark on my life. One day, in 
the afternoon, the front door bell rang. I was told 
Father Claircy asked if I would see him. A prevision 
of misery came to me. I trembled first like an aspen, 
and then suddenly grew bold as a lion. 

'‘Show him in,'' I said. 

A few seconds and Father Claircy was in the room. 

I had mentally armed myself at all points in those 
seconds, except the one vital and important one ; but I 
cannot blame myself for that, as I had no idea of the 
place in which he would attack me. I was like a be- 
sieged town with the chief gate open and the sentinel 
asleep. I tried to guess why he had come ; and con- 
cluded that he wanted me and my money in the Church ; 
intended, in fact, by degrees to make a convert. I 
could think of nothing else. 

He looked less like a wolf than he had done that 
morning in the chapel. 

The priest’s dress harmonized so well with his face 
that it destroyed the effect of the chief characteristic of 
it, which had appeared so markedly to my artistic per- 
ceptions, amid the intensely emotional and religious 


THE CONFESSIONS OF A WOMAN. 


171 

surroundings of the chapel on that wonderful morning 
when I had knelt there. 

He came in, bowed to me, and sat down when I did; 
all without a word, yet with perfect ease of manner. 
His form was extraordinarily gaunt, but he used it with 
unusual grace, and thus, though a particularly ugly 
man, he was very pleasing to look at. The varying 
expressions of his face, all of which I could see were 
studied, were extremely interesting. I saw the expres- 
sions were masks, but I could not see underneath to 
the real man. His eyes fastened on me for a moment, 
and he took a complete survey ; then he looked steadily 
away for some time. 

''I have come,'' he said, ‘^on a most difficult and 
painful errand. Only its urgency excuses my coming. 
I must ask you, at the outset, Madam, to excuse my 
presence here,, and to forgive it. For you may, after 
we have talked a little, come to regard it as an insult. 
But, indeed, I desire most earnestly to act as your friend 
and in your true interests. Please try to remember 
that, will you ? " 

‘'I will try,"' I answered, studying his face all the 
while, and trying to see beneath the mask. I saw a 
faint smile come and go at my answer, which doubtless 
appeared to him naively cautious. But I only spoke as 
I felt. We were all through at such cross-purposes, as 
he, being full of calculation, credited me with a similar 
condition of mind. 

“ It is true," he said, though of course I cannot ex- 
pect you to believe it, merely because I say so. But 


THE CONFESSIONS OF A WOMAN 


172 

we who live out of the world learn to look on all with 
charity and to try to benefit everyone. Besides, no one 
can look at you and know your position without feeling 
a desire to help you. The world is a terrible place for 
one so young and beautiful as you are." 

I waited. What else could I do ? 

‘'You are gifted," he went on after a pause, “with 
attractions superior to those of most women, just such 
attractions as take hold of refined and sensitive natures 
and doom them to torment. Doubtless you are un- 
aware of your own power, and thus you are yourself in 
great danger, and need some real support to take the 
place of husband or mother. Would that you belonged 
to the true Church," he concluded with a sigh. I leaned 
back more easily ; so this was really the motive of his 
visit ! I still said nothing. My feeling was that he 
was stronger than I, and that the less I said the better. 
For I had discerned one gleam of the true man just at 
the end of his speech — I had detected craftiness. I 
knew that I had none of this useful quality, and that 
therefore he was my superior in any struggle that might 
be coming. He looked at me now, sharply, as if 
puzzled at my silence, and then looked away again. 

“I suppose you think this is only a preamble," he 
said. “I read in your countenance that you are nat- 
urally very frank, and I will be the same. Well, I 
have come to ask you to do a good deed." 

“And what is that deed " I said. “To enter the 
Church and devote my brush to painting altar-pieces 


THE CONFESSIONS OF A WOMAN 


173 

and my money to the charities of the Church ? I may 
do it yet, when I am sufficiently miserable.” 

Again I did as I had done with Ashton ; spoke with- 
out calculation, and speaking my mind appeared to 
deliberately insult the man. He may have come as my 
friend — I cannot tell — but I know I spoke sneeringly 
and I know with that speech I made him a mortal 
enemy. The sneer was born of the despair and bitter- 
ness of unbelief; but how could he know that? So 
little do we understand each other in this world, which 
seems sometimes like a mixture of Romeo and Juliet, 
Hamlet, Macbeth, and the Comedy of Errors. But the 
last play holds a very conspicuous part in the arrange- 
ment of affairs. 

A dark flush mounted over Father Claircy's face, 
which he could not control, otherwise he took my 
words very quietly and even kindly. 

‘‘I trust you may never be driven into the fold by 
misery, though then you will find it your true refuge, if 
such a dark day should come to you. No, I am come 
to ask you, not for the salvation of your own soul, but 
to help me save another. I am sure you are generous 
and good enough to do this and gladly.” 

I waited and he did not go on ; so then I said : 

“Will you please tell me what you mean, plainly? ” 

“Yes,” he answered, still looking out at the garden. 
“Last evening Mrs. Merrion discovered that her son 
had been daily paying stolen and secret visits to you. 
She taxed him with it, and then the whole thing came 
out^' 


174 


THE CONFESSIONS OF A WOMAN. 


“ What do you mean by the whole thing I asked, 
“I did not know Arthur Merrion's visits to me were 
any secret or were stolen in any sense." 

‘‘ Did you really suppose," he replied, with veiled 
sarcasm, ‘‘that Mrs. Merrion could know of his coming 
to you alone every morning and coming to your window 
every evening — whether admitted or not is not for me 
to say — and that she would not have interfered to pre- 
vent the scandal. " 

“ Scandal ! " I exclaimed, and rose to my feet. He 
rose also. 

“Yes, scandal," he repeated, “what else could it be ? 
But there is much worse than that. Once taxed with 
his folly Arthur revealed his true condition. He avowed 
himself your lover, absolutely infatuated with you, 
infatuated to such a degree that he proposes to break 
his betrothal, leave the Church, and disgrace his name 
and family for your sake. He is willing to lose his soul 
for your love. It is an infatuation such as only an in- 
tellectual woman like yourself could have inspired in a 
man so religious, so refined, as Arthur Merrion ; and 
it is on your intellectuality and greatness that I base 
all my hopes." 

A whole tide of emotions swept through me as he 
spoke. I could not answer him at once ; I had to 
collect my faculties and go over his words ; before I 
could reply I sat down again and tried to think — at last 
I said, 

“ What do you want me to do ? " 

“ There is only one way of breaking this fatal pas- 


THE CONFESSIONS OF A WOMAN 


175 

sion,” he said, very low ; ‘'it is useless to oppose him ; 
if he never saw you again so long as he lived he would 
pine for love of you. I ask you to save a fellow- 
creature’s soul and to kill this love in his heart.” 

“ What do you mean ?’’ I said, still baffled and im- 
patient. 

“ It is a hard thing to ask of you, who are so noble,” 
he said, “ but cannot you make him believe he is sup- 
planted — that his place in your heart has been taken — ” 

“ Jesuit ! ” I exclaimed, starting up. I walked to the 
window, careless of keeping watch on his face. I 
forgot everything in my horror. I wanted to see the 
sky, to feel the air, to assure myself the world was the 
same as it was half an hour ago. After a moment I 
turned mechanically, and faced him again. He was 
standing by the mantel-shelf, a strange expression on 
his face, one which I could not fathom, but which 
arrested my attention. I fancied that in that word I had 
touched the secret of his soul, the source of his power. 
He had a splendid air at the moment, almost as though 
he had been recognized as a king in spite of a thin dis- 
guise. 

“ I cannot tell Arthur Merrion a lie,” I said, “I will 
not do it.” 

“ Remember how much is at stake — said Father 
Claircy. “His mother’s happiness for all the rest of 
her life — think of the misery you will put her in — think 
of the horror of her life if this disgrace falls on her — ” 

“ But,” I interrupted, “ there is no chance of this dis- 
grace falling on her. I shall not permit it. Arthur 


176 the confessions of a woman 

Merrion is not my lover, though he may love me. I 
myself have shown him the folly and wickedness of 
allowing this feeling to take hold of him.'’ 

‘‘ In appearance he is your lover," said the priest, 
“ and denial of anything so apparently true is useless. 
That is a piece of worldly information which may be of 
use to you ; do not forget it. But, please recollect that 
my action is not from any worldly motive. Arthur Mer- 
rion's soul stands before an awful danger ; he would 
desert a bride to whom he has been betrothed by the 
Church — he would sacrifice her willingly, and break his 
vows. With you only lies the power to save him. Write 
him a letter — the lie, as you call it, may serve to help 
you with your God at the Judgment Day. 

I sank into a chair and covered my face with my 
hands. A sudden gush of thought and recollection came 
over me. I had seen both Sarah Bernhardt and Mod- 
jeska in the Dame aux Camelias. Both had wrung tears 
from me in that terrible scene of the letter. But I had 
not understood the situation — never till now ; oh, how 
little people do understand of the great work of artists, 
even when they appreciate it. I never understood till 
now. My mind went all over the scene, in a flash. But 
was not this worse ? I was innocent, as regards Arthur; 
he did not stand to me in the position Armand stood to 
Camille. Yet, so strangely do the lives of people of 
the same type repeat themselves, that here I stood face 
to face with the same awful situation Camille had to face. 
Should I be recompensed as she was, by death ? And 
how much harder my task was than hers ! For I was 


THE CONFESSIONS OF A WOMAN 


177 

absolutely, though the world might not believe it, what 
the world calls an innocent woman. 

How could I do it } How destroy Arthur s faith in 
the white Lily he worshipped. No ; a deep subtlety of 
selfishness woke within me and forbade the sacrifice. 

I rose, and, looking straight at Father Claircy, said 
“ I will not write that letter. I will not tell that lie.'' 

And so saying, I left the room and went upstairs. 

I shut myself in the studio and locked the door, and 
then I sat down on the first chair I came to, and began 
to suffer, or, in other words, I began to think — I was 
pursued by that blight of life — the demon ‘"Thought." 

Why had I done this } Why had I given this answer .? 
Because I loved Arthur too dearly to tell him such a lie 
as this. When I spoke to Father Claircy I was full 
of contempt for Camille — or Margaret Gauthier, as I 
like best to call her, by Dumas’ own name for her — yes, 
full of contempt, I thought she had done a mean and 
despicable thing in telling a lie, a thing which my con- 
science would not permit me to do. Conscience ! A flash 
as of lightning had illumined my own nature and re- 
vealed me to myself. Conscience had nothing to do 
with it. Conscience was only a dummy in the battle, a 
convenient figure behind which I had sheltered. For 
it was I who would not tell the lie, because I could not 
bear that Arthur should think me a mere wanton, like 
the rest. And this was all I was — hideously like the rest 
in my selfishness, in my pride, in my self-respect. Mar- 
garet Gauthier was a great creature beside me, a noble 

woman, one who could sacrifice herself for the one she 

12 


178 the confessions of a woman 

loved more dearly than herself. Then I did not love 
Arthur more dearly than myself, as she had loved Ar- 
mand } No, that was evident. For Arthur's ties were 
as hopeless as Armand's ; while my position was worse 
than Marguerite's, in that I was married. There was 
no hope. I could give him up, knowing there was no 
hope, so long as he still thought well of me. But I 
could not save him from degradation and suffering at 
the cost of my own self-respect. What was this thing, 
self-respect ? I demanded of myself. Was it a vice or 
a virtue } I remembered how Ashton had compared 
Mrs. Herries to me, in her favor. She was a kinder, 
gentler, better woman in his eyes. Yet she led a life 
looked upon as disgraceful, and had had the effrontery 
to come to my wedding. Thinking her over I saw that 
she had no self-respect. Yet she was more lovable and 
kinder than I was. Were woman better when they had 
parted with this thing } Was it a fetish, a false god, set 
up in one's heart so firmly that it survived the faith in 
all other gods } Yes, Margaret Gauthier had acted like 
a noble woman in falsely representing herself in order 
to help her lover. But then she had no self-respect to 
stand in her way. She followed only the dictates of a 
warm, passionate, true heart, in all her conduct towards 
Arman d. I was frightened at my own selfishness as I 
looked at myself. 

All this time — and it was some time, for first I thought 
quickly, then slowly, so as to realize my thoughts and 
not let them escape me — I was sitting upright in my chair 
and looking fixedly at the carpet. Suddenly I arose, and 


THE CONFESSIONS OF A WOMAN 


179 

carrying out the odd habit I had acquired of looking 
at myself when I was holding these terrible conver- 
sations in my own mind, I went up to the Psyche-glass 
and gazed close and straight at my haggard, drawn 
face. There was no beauty in it then ; only the agony 
of a creature on the verge of a precipice. 

What is this thing self-respect.?^'' I again demanded 
of myself. ''Can't I tear it away and fling it from me } 
It is an evil thing ; it makes me regard myself as better 
than other people, which I have no right to do. I must 
destroy it, and then perhaps I may discover some 
nobility and warmth in my heart, as Margaret did in 
hers. Why should I not tell a lie ? Everybody else 
seems to do things which I look on with horror. Have 
I any right to look on these things with horror } No, 
because selfishness and personal pride are more criminal. 
What is left for poor humanity if those who love cannot 
die for each other ? I could readily die for Arthur, but 
I cannot tell him a lie of such a nature. Why } Because 
I have pride in my virtue. Have I not long seen 
intellectually that virtue is only a word } That it means 
something different in every country and among every 
race of people } That to the honest thinker the distinc- 
tion between vice and virtue is purely arbitrary and 
artificial } What then holds me back in my action } My 
own self-respect. I must tear it off me, like a snake, 
and fling it from me. How can I do it } How is it 
possible ? 

At last there came a knocking at the door, which 
eventually roused me, for it was continuous. I crept 


i8o the confessions of a woman. 

slowly towards it and opened it. My maid stood there. 

'‘Oh, Madam,’’ she said, "you have terrified me. I 
was afraid you had fainted ! ” 

I shook my head ; she did not seem much reassured, 
but gave her message. 

"There is a lady. Madam, most anxious to see you 
on important business. I would not have disturbed you 
but that she begged me so earnestly and said it could 
not wait. She would not give me a card or her name, 
but gave me this note.” 

I took the envelope and opened it. It contained only 
a card bearing the name, "Mrs. Herries”and under- 
neath was written, "I implore you to see me.” 

Card and envelope fell from my hands, and I stood 
staring at them. I was dazed, stupefied and bewildered. 
The maid picked them up and put them on a table. 
"What shall I say. Madam.? ’* she asked. 

"I will see her,” I said — then I added hastily — "Get 
me some water.” 

My throat and mouth were dry, like wood. 


THE CONFESSIONS OF A WOMAN. 


l8l 


CHAPTER XIX 

I WENT downstairs after a little while, passed chiefly 
by my maid in brushing my hair, and myself in va- 
cantly drinking sal-volatile which she brought me un- 
asked. I was unable to form any conjecture as to 
the reason of this extraordinary visit of Mrs. Herries. A 
week ago, perhaps two days ago, I should certainly have 
refused to see her, and should also certainly have 
regarded her coming as an insult. But now I had 
arrived at a state in which apparently impossible events 
are regarded with composure ; the mind has borne so 
much surprise that it looks idly on anything new. A 
very little while ago all the past would have risen up 
before me at the mere name of Mrs. Herries, and I 
should have turned away in pain and disgust. But the 
present had overpowered the past ; I found, when I 
tried to do it, that I could hardly remember Ashton's 
face — and Mrs. Herries — yes, I remembered, she was 
beautiful, with ruddy hair. I had thought, when first I 
saw her, what a model she would make. Such thoughts 
as these were all I was conscious of as I rose to go down 
to her, which will show how entirely preoccupied I was. 
It never occurred to me that I should not see her ; or 
that it would seem strange to hold such an interview. 

I walked into the room, and I believe we bowed and 


1 82 the confessions of a woman 

smiled as people generally do ; but I think it was quite 
mechanical on both sides. We were quite taken up 
with looking at each other. Of course that is very 
natural for two women. But the truth was that each 
had altered so greatly as to absorb the attention of the 
other. Mrs. Herries looked older than she did when I 
saw her before, her face had more marks on it and was 
less healthy ; there was a little set of small lines spread- 
ing from the outer end of each eye-slit. But she was 
even handsomer ; the fresh color mantled in her cheek 
with the same beauty, and the rich hair l-ooked beauti- 
ful on her white forehead. She was dressed with the 
utmost richness, and great taste, a la mode. It may be 
imagined that entering upon this striking figure, and 
remembering then, by the force of her presence, that 
she was my husband's mistress, I was interested in 
looking at her. And for her, if she did gaze her fill, 
there is some excuse : she saw in her lover s wife, a 
woman whose white face was set with passion, burned 
with emotion, whose eyes were as the eyes of a hunted 
creature, who had grown thin and wan. I was dressed 
in white satin, made a la Grecque, a fashion I affected 
in my recluse life ; so that as we stood there we formed 
the sharpest contrast possible. Mrs. Herries showed, 
very slightly, the result of a liking for good living 
(surely the most harmless liking imaginable), while I 
looked what I was — an artist capable of working all 
day, and only nibbling a crust a la Shelley. 

I feel as if I am writing in a frivolous way, just to 
ease my mind and heart. For there is something in 


THE CONFESSIONS OF A WOMAN. 1 83 

the memory of this meeting that hurts terribly. Mrs. 
Herries understood the world, and got the best of it ; 
I have spent my life trying to understand the world, 
and always have got the worst of it. 

Well, she smiled, a very sweet smile, one that lit up 
her face and made it interesting at once. 

‘‘It is very good of you to see me,'’ she said in a 
well-toned voice. It suddenly struck me we were both 
standing. “ Sit down,” I said, and sat down myself, on 
a chair by a table on which I could rest my arms, 
which were bare to the elbow. I looked idly at them 
and thought how white and thin they were. Was I be- 
coming a skeleton } It seemed so, beside this bright 
creature, a model worthy of Rubens. 

“I have come to warn you,” she said, speaking a 
little nervously at first. ‘'I could not let anyone else 
come, and I am sure you will forgive me for coming 
when you have listened to me.” She had drawn a 
chair close to me, and rested one perfectly-shaped, per- 
fectly-gloved, hand upon the table. A very slender 
bracelet was on her wrist, with a magnificent row of 
diamonds set upon it. The glitter caught my eye and 
I looked at it. I had quantities of jewellery laid aside 
which I never thought of wearing, so that I had 
nothing on my arms and on my fingers no ring but 
my wedding-ring. 

“ I hope you will listen to me patiently, ” she said, 
although I have something very painful to say. I 
feel that it is right for me to come or I should not 


come. 


1 84 the confessions of a woman. 

I passed my hand over my forehead. There was a 
reminiscence of Father Claircy about this commence- 
ment which bewildered me. 

‘‘Yes/' I answered. “Please go on. Do not have 
any hesitation." 

“Well," she answered looking at me as she spoke, 
“ I will take you at your w'ord, for I am sure you are a 
brave woman. I know I am, or I should not be here. 
So we will go straight into the matter. Do you know 
that your husband has filed a bill for divorce against 
you ? " 

I stared at her, and at last her meaning drove into 
my mind. 

“ Divorce ? " I said. “On what grounds ? " 

“You mean — "said Mrs. Herries, “I suppose you 
mean who is the co-respondent." 

My confused brain grasped her correction, after a 
moment, and I said “ Yes, who?" 

“Arthur Merrion,"she answered. 

I started up in absolute horror and amazement. 

“Arthur Merrion ! " I exclaimed. “ Oh, this must be 
slopped. It is false, absolutely false ! What shall I 
do!" 

“Sit down," she said, and laid her gloved hand orr 
my arm. I did not shrink from her touch, but I looked 
down at her hand, trying to understand why I did not 
shrink. She took her hand quickly away, seeing the 
glance I suppose, and misunderstanding it. A sudden 
quite unaccountable impulse seized me, and I held out 
my hand to her. She caught it in hers, and pressed it 


THE CONFESSIONS OF A WOMAN. 185 

earnestly. From that moment it seemed as if we were 
friends, and quite at home with each other. Strange, 
was it not? 

‘‘There is only one thing for you to do,'' she said, 
“and that is to leave this country instantly. Go any- 
where, but don’t stay here. You have acted in a very 
unworldly manner, and have expected people to judge 
you by your own standard. I can see that. Although 
I am a woman of the world I don't judge this situation 
as others do, for various reasons. One is that a 
woman can read another woman's face. Don't trouble 
to tell me anything about the matter. The important 
thing is that I have to tell you that whether the 
accusation is true or false makes no difference ; appear- 
ances are all against you ; even facts. You are always 
watched ; and you have thought little of that lately." 

“Always watched ! " I exclaimed. 

“Yes, always, by people outside the house and by 
your servants. You might have expected that if you 
had been an ordinary woman and guarded against it. 
Of course when you gave up driving the spies set to 
work to see what you did do. They soon found out — 
that Arthur Merrion spent half his days here ; and there 
is plenty of evidence of the usual sort, quite worthless 
to a sensible person, but listened to by judges and 
juries. I mean as a fact that your servants are ready 
to swear against you. I hide nothing from you because 
you must go from England to-night or to-morrow at 
latest. I want you to be out of reach." 

^^Fou do?" 


1 86 the confessions of a woman 

‘‘Oh, yes, I came here to serve myself; I do not pre- 
tend to be one of the unselfish people. My advice will 
serve you, too, because to go through the divorce court 
would kill a woman of your temperament ; mid it is a 
pity, too, that such a blow should fall undeservedly on 
the Merrion family, whose men have always been of the 
Bayard type."' 

“But how can my going servej/^?^/^’' 

“I will tell you if you wish me to speak out, but it 
will involve my mentioning a difficult subject between 
us two — '' 

“You mean Ashton,'’ I said. “ Do not hesitate. His 
name does not make me suffer now." 

“ I will speak then, " she said, “ and then you will 
understand the whole affair, which may be useful to us 
both. For to tell you the truth I am a little afraid of 
someone, though I am not prepared to say who at the 
moment, giving you the idea that by a Quixotic sacrifice 
you could render me a service, or that you might free 
yourself to some advantage. My own opinion is that 
it would only be a scandal and disgrace for you to go 
through the divorce court, and it would not serve either 
of us." 

“Speak out," I said. 

“Well," she went on, “ the fact is — I allow it's a dif- 
ficult thing to say to you — the fact is Ashton wants to 
marry me. Ah, I knew you would be startled. Can I 
do anything for you — shall I ring for your maid } " 

“ No, no, " I said, “ I am all right. I am bewildered 
more than anything else. I begin to understand. If 


THE CONFESSIONS OF A WOMAN 187 

he divorced me, he would marry you. Please go on.” 

“Well — ” she said a little hesitatingly, “Ashton is 
more positive than when you knew him. Forgive me 
for saying that you made a vital mistake in submitting 
to him instead of managing him. He is like a restless 
horse. He has literally bolted at this idea of marrying 
me. It is the last thing I want. I do not want to marry 
him.” 

I looked at her in some wonder, unable to formulate 
any question which would help her to go on. She was 
looking at the table ; suddenly she raised her eyes to 
mine, and I saw they were wet and brimming over with 
tears. But she was evidently used to self-control and 
would not even let the tears fall. 

“I will try and explain to you, if you care to listen to 
me,” she said. “Yes, I thought you would care : a 
great artist like you can afford to look at life differently 
from the every-day woman who thinks of herself only 
all the time. I have very often thought of you, though 
it may be difficult for you to believe. The fact is I am 
not a mere woman of the half-world, though I was 
pushed into it very young, and know all its ways, and 
understand the men of your world much better than you 
or any of their wives know them. I went to your wed- 
ding, because I had never been able to see you ; and I 
was determined to see the girl who was taking from me 
the only man I had ever loved. When I saw you, I 
saw absolute innocence on your face ; and I knew that 
within six months he would come back to me. And 
he did ! ” 


1 88 the confessions of a woman. 

‘‘ He did ? — so soon ? ” 

“Yes. Do not be surprised. We all have to face 
life as it is. Love has become a science, or an art, 
whichever you like to call it ; woman are married ig- 
norant of this, and their husbands will not educate them 
for some reason which I cannot understand. They look 
on these virtuous, or ignorant woman, as very good, 
and fit to be the mothers of their children ; but dis- 
tinctly uninteresting. They practically leave them soon 
after marriage ; Ashton left you. But you have quite 
different capacities from the ordinary woman, and if 
any chance had brought you knowledge you would have 
been a terrible and formidable rival for me. You would 
have held Ashton to the end, through everything. But 
chance favored me, as I thought it would, for you were 
so completely innocent ; and moreover you did not love 
Ashton. I did ; I do. But my hold over him is not 
what it was. God forgive me ! What women are driven 
to ! — Imagine my telling this to you. But I am not 
a fool, and I rely on your nobility. Also, I am not an 
adventuress, who would like to marry Ashton for se- 
curity, for his name, and money and position. No, I 
want his love ; that is all. I want it, and I must keep 
it at all hazards. We have to fight for life in this world. 
I believe, if I were his wife now he would leave me 
before long.’" 

“What an extraordinary idea," I said, looking ear- 
nestly at her. She made a movement of impatience. 

“You are such a recluse," she exclaimed. “You 
think and you work, but you do not study men and wo- 


THE CONFESSIONS OF A WOMAN 189 

men as you should. That is why you are startled by 
events, and why you suffer. I am prepared for every- 
thing. Marriage is the greatest mistake possible. A 
life-long bond is enough in itself — the mere idea of it — 
to kill love very soon. With a man of the world ac- 
customed to pleasure, it inevitably kills it. He never 
values what belongs to him. He is forever looking 
out for something which can only be got or kept with 
difficulty; this arouses his desires. You understand 
now, perhaps, why I have come to you. It would be 
an almost impossible thing for me to avoid a marriage 
with Ashton if he were free ; so that I don't want him 
to be free. I am rich and I care nothing for the world, 
and I never could enter his world. All I want is his 
love. For all our sakes will you escape from the un- 
happy position you have placed yourself in ? " 

“ Yes," I said ; have one thing to accomplish, 
and then I will go." 

She paused a moment and then said with an effort, 
‘‘Unless you yourself should wish to be freed." 

^‘Oh, no, no," I exclaimed. “Why should I? My 
life is wrecked. I do not care what name I bear, or what 
comes to me." For suddenly my mind had veered 
round to the other j ,pect of this affair about Arthur 
Merrion, and to the iesperate resolution I had taken in 
order to break his love for me. Ah, how awful it was ! 
Yet I saw I was right in my conclusion after that terri- 
ble argument about self-respect which I had held with 
myself. It was necessary to get rid of it in order to do 
anything worth doing. This woman had got rid of it 


THE CONFESSIONS OF A WOMAN 


190 

long ago, so completely, that she had forgotten what it 
meant ; but how much more honest she was, and how 
much more true to her own nature, than any of the good 
people I had known. 

These thoughts passed through my mind and sus- 
tained and confirmed me in my resolution ; but the res- 
olution itself was before my mental eyes, a picture of 
horror which I could not look away from. Mrs. Ker- 
ries rose and came close to me. 

‘‘You have some terrible trouble I know nothing of,'’ 
she said. “I can see that. You ought not to have to 
face this world ; you are too pure by nature and too dis- 
interested. But what can be done.?^ It is so hard for 
anyone to help any other." 

She took my hand in hers and kissed my arm — once, 
twice — and then was gone. 


THE CONFESSIONS OF A WOMAN 


191 


CHAPTER XX. 

I WAS alone again. I had been able to speak to some 
one who seemed like a friend, and now I was alone 
again. I must think and act. 

I got up and began to pace the room. I could not 
think. Had I indeed no friend in the world to help 
me ? Not one to think for me ? I never knew till now 
how alone I was. 

It was night now. I heard a step on the gravel ; and 
in a sudden horror, went to the window, shut it and 
shut the shutters. 

My miserable fate. Mrs. Herries could at least try to 
hold the man she loved, while I must hide from the 
man I loved. 

As I stood there, suffering, every thought and every 
feeling pain, a new idea presented itself to my mind 
and brought a sense of relief. It was the idea of suicide. 
I was tired of my life ; I suffered more than it was pos- 
sible to suffer ; I would die. Yes ; that thought was 
blessed and almost comforted me. Why had I not 
thought of it before. With this to support me, I was 
able to think again. I knew I must do what I had to 
do for Arthur's sake, before I died ; I knew I must leave 
the country, and go to some quiet place to commit the 
deed. To do it hastily would be like a confession, and 


192 THE CONFESSIONS OF A WOMAN, 

would moreover be the most cruel thing to Arthur possi- 
ble. He would love me, and believe in me, and mourn 
for me always. Where should I go "I What an awful 
blank was before me. Just to go out of my home and 
go to some strange place, and there, unknown and un- 
friended, blow my brains out. Here came in my weak- 
ness, and I am not ashamed of it, for it assails every 
man and every woman at this juncture. However 
great the despair of one's soul may be, it is hard to 
believe that there is not one friend left in the world to 
whom one might talk a little while before going on the 
last awful journey which must be taken quite alone. 
In the most desperate moment this underneath, deep- 
hidden clinging to humanity and to life, rises up and 
makes one stand like a fool before the great crisis — 
stand and look blindly round one for an answering 
hand. I had come now to the miserable condition 
which has been expressed only by Walt Whitman — 
Byron was too proud to express it, though it shows in 
his work, and though he knew all about ‘Hhe terri- 
ble doubt of appearances." It is a condition of abject 
weakness ; when a great mental effort has been made, 
and the mind has made the final decision to destroy 
itself and the body which is its vehicle — then comes 
this cowardly, trembling longing to hold one hand that 
satisfies — the hand of lover or friend who is strong 
enough to be unselfish and to say good-bye in that 
grasp, and yet give love at the same moment. In that 
dear contact, surely the mind would rest, and cease to 
ask the miserable questions which instantly commence 


THE CONFESSIONS OF A WOMAN. 


193 

to haunt the suicide who is capable of thought — the 
question of ^‘identity beyond the grave'' the doubt of 
"'to die, to sleep." 

To sleep : perchance to dream — " Ah, how these 
new thoughts came rushing over me — thoughts abso- 
lutely new in myself, yet so cruelly familiarized by these 
written words that leapt into my memory, and made 
me know that again I was entering upon a phase of 
human experience which has been known to suffering 
men and women from all time. 

‘‘Have I not one friend in all the world .f^’' I cried 
aloud, starting up, maddened by my thoughts, “not one 
to speak to in all this mass of humanity who would 
understand me. Surely one — " and then came into 
my mind “Svenski." 

It seemed like an answer. Certainly there was no 
one else whom it was possible to speak to at such a 
moment. But he was great. He would understand me. 
In my last hours of life I need not be utterly alone. 

I stood thinking a moment, and this thought gave me 
rest — the thought that there was one hand to touch, one 
ear to speak to, before I went out into the darkness 
alone. How we snatch at comfort. I walked slowly 
to my writing-table and, sitting down, wrote a letter. 
I wrote it slowly and with difficulty ; for I was so worn 
out. 


“My dear Friend," I said, “ for I think you are that 
and always have been. I have none other now ; and 
my life has becorne a burden too heavy to bear alone. 

13 


THE CONFESSIONS OF A WOMAN. 


194 

Find me some quiet spot in your country, where no one 
will know me or guess who I am ; and where you can 
come without notice or trouble to speak to me a little. 
I implore you do this, and write to me in Paris where 
I am going now. I do not want to stay there ; I am 
tired of everyone. I would like to travel on to Poland 
very quickly, as my soul is sick for want of someone 
to speak to. 

Ever as ever, 

Lily Harcourt. 

I addressed the envelope and put the two in the leaves 
of my blotting book. Then, my strength all gone, I 
fell asleep with my head on the table. From this posi- 
tion my maid rescued me, and succeeded in rousing me 
so far that I went upstairs and let her undress me, and 
got into bed. I was stupefied with mental suffering ; 
unable to think or reason ; comatose. I was just capa- 
ble of recollecting what Mrs. Herries had said about 
my servants, the presence of my maid recalling it to me. 
She had always been kind and attentive ; but how could 
I tell what her motive might be > I decided not to take 
her with me, as I had intended, but to leave her behind 
and travel alone. It would be a new experience — but 
what did that matter } And so I fell asleep again, or at 
all events, into a state that was like sleep. But, when 
I was roused in the morning it seemed to me that I had 
not been asleep, but had only been lying there steadily 
contemplating the thought of suicide, and the fact that 
death was the only prospect, all through the night 


THE CONFESSIONS OF A WOMAN 


195 


My maid brought me some tea, and the information 
that it was ten o'clock ; and, further, that Mrs. Merrion 
was waiting in the morning-room, so anxious to see me, 
that she was willing to wait till I should get up. 

Another scene before me ; with what object? That 
I should break Arthur's heart and my own? Well, I 
had decided that. But it was evident, on reconsider- 
ation, that it was necessary to go to his mother and tell 
her so. 


196 


THE COXFESSIONS OF A WOMAN, 


CHAPTER XXI. 

So I went to tell her. She was standing looking out 
at the window ; and as she turned to me, I thought, 
with my artistic habit of observation, how like her face 
was to that of an angel. It was severe but very sweet ; 
sad, yet full of hope ; tender yet stern. Such are the 
faces artists choose as models for the angels who save 
men from hell, and carry souls they have snatched 
from the burning into the serenity of heaven. I stood 
before her silent,' and awed a little by this sweetness of 
her face which strangely contrasted with my own sense 
of despair and wreckage. 

‘‘How ill you look, Mrs. Harcourt,'' she said gently, 
approaching me and taking my hands in hers. “I 
fear Father Claircy’s visit annoyed you. I think he was 
too harsh and hurried. I have spent all night in prayer 
in the chapel, praying for you, praying for Arthur ; 
and I think my prayers have been heard. I have a 
strength now that cannot be all my own. I want to 
impart some of it to you, in order to help you to over- 
come the terrible situation you are placed in.'' 

“You are come on the same errand as Father 
Claircy } " I said dully. This talk about prayers in the 
chapel affected me very little now. Had I not heard 


THE CONFESSIONS OF A WOMAN 


197 

Arthur talk of them. Was he any stronger than I was 
because of them ? 

Sit down, '' she said, you do not look fit to stand. 
Do you not remember how once at dawn, when you 
were ill, you called me mother, and cried out to know 
why you had not a mother 1 Take me as one ; show 
me your heart ; let me help you.'' 

In what } " I asked. How can you help me ? " 

She paused and then said, Do you love Arthur ? 

‘‘ Yes, " I answered. 

You know that it is a mortal sin, being placed as 
you are." 

“Ido not know what you mean by mortal sin," I 
replied apathetically. “I know that my love for Arthur 
is quite natural ; but that circumstances stand in the 
way, and therefore we must part and suffer. Father 
Claircy has asked me to do what to me is a really wicked 
thing in order to save Arthur from suffering. Well, I 
suppose I must do it, not because I am asked to, but 
because I love Arthur, and it is a pleasure to sacrifice 
myself for him. And yet," I said, more to myself than 
to her, “it is strange that I would rather tell a lie to 
any man on earth than to the man I love.'’ 

‘^Ah ! " she cried, “you look at it so harshly. It is 
your being without faith or hope, your being so scep- 
tical-being in fact an Atheist— that makes it so hard to 
you. " 

“I am not an Atheist, Mrs. Merrion," I said, “and 
you have no right to call me one. I am an absolute Ag- 
nostic, andthat is all I have ever shown myself to be to 


198 the confessions of a woman 

you. Religious persons are too ready to call those 
who ask for proof, Atheists. I am not an Atheist. I 
look for God everywhere, but I cannot find Him. 
Byron, in all his mental misery, had the happiness of 
being a Pantheist; I am not even that ; high mountains 
are not to me a feeling, in that sense, any more than 
your Chapel. Both are sensuous pleasures. But why 
talk of such subjects .? Let us get to the practical matter 
at issue.” 

‘ ‘ But, dear Mrs. Harcourt, I am so much older than 
you, and I want you to approach it in the right spirit. 
I want you to feel that you are doing a service to God 
and the Church in freeing Arthur from his bondage to 
you.” 

'‘And I,” I retorted, “wish to act under no illusions, 
nor excuse my conduct by any phrases, religious or 
otherwise. I am to sacrifice my self-respect and make 
Arthur look on me as a faithless wanton ; and in order 
to do this I must lose all my self-respect and either be 
that wanton as nearly as I can, or else tell him a lie.” 

‘ ‘ Oh, how cruelly you put it, ” she said. ‘ ‘ How you 
misunderstand things ! It is such a little thing you are 
asked to do ! God will forgive you for it ; the Church 
would absolve you from it ; for it is for so good an end ! ” 

“I do not want God's forgiveness,” I said bitterly. 
“I and my conscience are alone. As for the Church 
and its absolution I will leave those baubles to you. 
Doubtless they will bring you | comfort even after this 
conversation. Now let me tell you plainly that if cir- 
cumstances were not such that the separation between 


THE CONFESSIONS OF A WOMAN 


199 

myself and Arthur is inevitable, and if I did not love so 
much that I wish to save him suffering, I would not do 
this thing for any plea you could make. All this non- 
sense about saving his soul that Father Claircy talked, 
is so much wasted breath in my ears. So far as I can 
understand your plan, I am to send his soul to heaven 
by sending mine to hell.'' 

Her face changed and grew ashy pale. ‘‘Ah, but 
think’' she said, ‘‘ what a glorious sacrifice yours would 
be. The very angels would weep over it, and you would 
be helped to repentance and forgiven a thousand times. 
Oh, Mrs. Harcourt come into the true Church and find 
peace there. Free Arthur from his infatuation, his sin- 
ful passion for you, and then find comfort in the refuge 
of all noble souls, and look to our Virgin Mother for 
intercession — " 

She said a great deal more of the same kind ; I can- 
not bring myself to write it down, for it made me sick 
then and does now. I rose to my feet with a gesture of 
disgust which she mistook for one of refusal, and she 
fell on her knees and caught my dress and held it and 
sobbed passionately. She was begging for her son now, 
and her words grew confused. But, standing there like 
a statue, looking down at her I heard enough of them. 
She accused me of having taken his love, used the prac- 
tised arts of an experienced and shameless woman to 
snatch him from the career marked out for him ; she 
begged me to repent of my evil deed, for fear of being 
twice damned, and to give him up again and release 
him. The little lie I might have to tell was a mere 


200 


THE CONFESSTOm OF A WOMAH. 


trifle, or nothing by the side of the great sin I had com- 
mitted I saw myself represented by her as a monster 
of wickedness, a wolf in sheep's clothing, in plain words, 
as T. have said, a practiced courtesan who had deliber- 
ately taken the love of a boy and tried to ruin him. 
^‘Give him back," she entreated. “Give him back! 
Remember I am his mother ! " 

“Oh, get up from your knees, " I said in horror, snatch- 
ing my dress from her ; “I can bear this no longer. I 
want to ask you a question. Rise, and calm yourself. 
I have heard enough. I have decided how to act. " 

My resolution of manner quelled her for the moment ; 
she rose and sat down by the table, and, leaning her head 
on her hand, made visible efforts to calm herself. I 
walked about the room until she was quiet. Then I 
went straight up to her. 

“ No w, " I said, ‘ ^ speak openly and answer me as one 
human being should another in the presence of that God 
you serve. Have you any self-respect?" 

She drew herself slowly up, her eyes fixed on mine ; 
her stateliness, her proud bearing returned. 

am one of God's servants," she answered. “I 
respect myself as being in His service. My life has 
been a pure and honorable one. I have done nothing to 
forfeit my self-respect. What do you mean ? " 

I burst out into sudden and uncontrollable laughter ; 
nothing could have stopped this intense spasm of cyni- 
cism from sweeping over me. I seemed to myself to 
stand alone on a windy plain of consciousness and to 
see everything I had ever believed in, or clung to, blown 


THE CONFESSIONS OF A WOMAN. 


201 


away. How ridiculous was this woman and her insen- 
sate arguments ! Was I mad or she ? Well, if she had 
self-respect the sooner I got rid of it the better, was the 
thought that stopped my laughter at last. 

beg your pardon, Mrs. Merrion, I said, my self- 
control returning after this outbreak. ‘‘ Tell me plainly 
what you want I understand what Father Claircy 
wanted. He wished me to write a letter to Arthur, tell- 
ing him I was tired of him and had taken another lover 
in his place. Well, I am even yet not religious enough 
to tell him a direct lie ; but I will force myself to leave 
my home at once, for his sake, and he shall lose sight 
of me altogether. 

‘'But will you really do it? she said; and I knew 
by her tone that my unexpected outburst of laughter 
had frightened her. She had no clue to its meaning 
and it made her distrustful of me. I felt too great con- 
tempt for her — or rather I was in too contemptuous a 
mood — to care to alter her opinion, even if I could 
have done so. I was in the condition of a person who 
has resolved to undergo a terrible surgical operation. 
The mental resolution has been taken, and is firm ; for 
the time being it absorbs all the power of the mind and 
will and leaves one oblivious of all else. I only wanted 
Mrs. Merrion to leave me; and yet I hardly noticed her 

Next to the morning-room, which I used as my sitting- 
room, because it was always bright and pleasant, was 
the great drawing-room. This was kept shuttered, and 
all the furniture and ornaments covered ; for I never 


202 


THE CONFESSIONS OF A IVOMAN, 


used it, and indeed disliked it. There was a door be- 
tween the two rooms which was kept locked. The key 
was in the lock, and I went and turned it and opened 
the door. I went in and pushed the door to behind me. 
Ah, what a close, musty smell, what a need of air and 
sun. I could not bear it. I went back and set the door 
between the two rooms ajar. I could not return to 
the brightness of my morning-room, which was now 
more painful than the darkness of the one I was in. A 
large sofa, shrouded in brown holland, stood near the 
door. I lay down on this and looked at the streak of 
light. I found myself simply watching the play of light 
and shade. I did not think. The agony of my mind 
was so great that I was reduced for the moment to the 
condition of an idiot. So the time passed unnoticed — 
the time which when Mrs. Merrion left me had seemed 
like an eternity. 

I lay here, till the gong sounded for lunch. I re- 
membered again what Mrs. Herries had said about the 
servants, and thought I would try not to act more 
strangely than I could help, so I went into the dining- 
room and sat at the table, and slowly drank a glass of 
champagne. I put food on my plate and tried to taste 
it ; but that was impossible. I found myself suddenly 
thinking. I was wondering to what depths I was about 
to fall. I had no idea. What was I thinking of? I 
asked myself suddenly, starting up from the table. I 
went back into the morning-room and went into the 
dark drawing-room, like a wounded animal, to hide 
myself. I seemed to have forgotten Arthur ; forgotten 


THE CONFESSIONS OF A WOMAN 


203 


everything. My mind was a vacant blank. I was tor- 
pid. I lay looking at the bright streak of light from the 
morning-room doorway, comatose, idiotic. 

Presently I heard a slight sound in the morning room. 
With an effort I sat up — I must disguise my mental 
condition in some way and be able to speak if it was a 
servant who had come in. For one memory began to 
come back — the remembrance that I must go away at 
once — and this came on me like a sudden stir of life — 
for go I must. It mattered not what else I did, but I 
must never see Arthur again. That one thought was 
all I had. 

As I sat up I saw clearly into the room. It was not 
a servant who was there. It was Father Claircy. This 
startled and amazed me. He was only a moment 
there. I saw him put something down on my writing- 
table and then go quickly away. I heard his step on 
the gravel. What had he put on my writing-table } I 
slowly dragged myself up and softly approached the 
door. He was gone — the room quite empty. I 
approached the table. My letter to Svenski lay there, 
not yet put into the envelope. Yes, yes, this was my 
one hope — my one friend ; I said to myself forgetting, 
in my despair, that he too loved me. Loved me ! Oh, 
the horror of those words to me forever ! I sat down, 
folded the letter, put it in the envelope, sealed it and 
rang the bell. I gave it in charge of a servant to stamp 
sufficiently for Poland and to post at once. Then 
I remembered that I had given no address in Paris, 
and calling the man back I wrote outside ‘‘Poste Res- 


204 


THE CONFESSIONS OF A WOMAN 


tante, Rue de Choiseul. ” That seemed to exhaust my 
last scrap of energy. I could still stand and move — I 
was too mentally sick to faint — and I stood at my writ- 
ing table and took one shuddering look round the pleas- 
ant room. It was like the last look at the corpse of a 
friend. I went out at the door and closed it. I never 
entered that room again. I went slowly upstairs, and 
rang for my maid. 

I am going to Paris, to-morrow,'' I said, '' and shall 
leave here by an early train — the earliest I can. You 
must get everything packed to-night — and you must 
look up the trains and the boat. I want you to see 
after everything, for I am not well. You will come 
with me to Dover, but I do not think you need come to 
Paris, as I am going to stay where I do not think there 
would be room for you." 

Having got through this speech, which seemed to 
me a miracle of plausibility and of acting, I went into 
the studio, and then my brain refused to act any more. 

Strange fantastic pictures passed before the eyes of 
my mind. I appeared to have lost my identity, to 
have lost all clear consciousness of myself, to be a 
mere observer of passing shapes and forms, most of 
which were utterly strange to me. Indeed, many 
were unintelligible. I do not know if this is a com- 
mon experience to those who suffer — with me it has 
happened more than once when in extreme mental 
pain. It is a kind of agony, this chaos of mind, 
in which one might be dead or asleep, so completely is 
the knowledge of oneself gone, I suddenly struggled 


THE CONFESSIONS OF A WOMAN 


205 

from it, as from a nightmare, gasping — but I saw, 
plainly visualized before me, like an actual face, a 
relic of my nightmare — the face of a boy, beardless, 
blue-eyed, cruel as death, with the hardness of well- 
loved iniquity blotting out the beauty of his gaze. 
What did this mean ? Who was he ? I seemed famil- 
iar with him — as if I knew him — yet he was unknown. 
Oh ! the pain of this psychic sense without knowl- 
edge ! 


2o6 


THE CONFESSIONS OF A WOMAN. 


CHAPTER XXIL 

‘‘Madam has had no lunch and no dinner/' said a 
voice at my elbow, rousing me suddenly from a leth- 
argy and a contemplation into which I had become 
plunged — for all Eternity as I imagined. 

It was my maid with a supper-tray very delicately 
set forth. I discovered on the instant that I was in- 
deed famished, and I ate and drank. 

We all know how food and wine restore the body, 
and how the mind will come suddenly to life again 
under this restoration. The tray taken away, I sat up 
suddenly and looked straight in the glass at myself. 

At that moment my maid entered with a note which 
I recognized instantly as from Arthur. I opened it 
immediately, for I was full of wonder as to why he 
should write. Here is his letter : — 

“ Good-bye, good-bye forever. When you get this I 
shall have left Merrion House, not to return till I bring 
home my bride. I came up to your house to-day ; the 
room was empty and I entered. I saw your letter to 
Svenski lying on your writing-table. Perhaps you will 
say I had no right to read it. I thought I had, and 
think so still. I am glad I read it, at all events ; for 
the illusion which was poisoning my soul is gone, 


THE CONFESSIONS OF A WOMAN 


207 

You amused your idle moments with me ; you are 
returning to him. There is nothing more to be said. 
I shall always pray for you. 

There were some marks of tears on this letter when, 
months later, I read it again. But I know I did not 
shed them. I read the letter over two or three times ; 
and then I locked it away in a safe place. By degrees 
I began to understand what had happened. I had 
been too agitated to guess before. Mrs. Merrion had 
taken that letter, relying on my distress of mind pre- 
venting any discovery — or taking the chance rather — 
and Father Claircy had brought it back. They had 
shown it to Arthur and worked upon him in such a 
manner that he looked upon it as the letter of a woman 
to a l®ver to whom she intended to return. But what 
about his having come to the house himself and read 
the letter when I had seen Father Claircy himself re- 
store it? I gazed at this fact for some little time, in 
stupefaction ; and the meaning of it broke in upon me. 
Of course this was a lie ; a lie to screen his mother and 
the priest. Was he driven to this? — was he intimidaied ? 
— that was not unlikely, for religion meant so much 
to him, and the priest and his mother had hitherto 
ruled him, as I now saw. But how could he be made 
to tell that lie ? Had he, like the others, no conscience ? 

I had idealized him ! — fancied him, as Mrs. Herries 
had said, a Bayard. But he was not one, I saw it, 
certainly ; he could not have done this if he had been 
what I thought him. And then I reviewed my knowl- 


2o8 the confessions of a woman, 

edge of him, and remembered that he had never be- 
lieved in my innocence as to Svenski — that he doubted 
me — in fact, he had never really know^n me, as I 
fancied, but only been led on by desire, and guided by 
desire. His mind had been poisoned all along by 
the others, and he had permitted it. He had never 
really faced the matter 'with me, nor would he have 
believed me if we had spoken about it in earnest. A 
great sigh escaped me. I was rudderless, indeed. 
Arthur, and the very ideal, the cherished ideal, the be- 
loved idol, had died for me. Oh, it was horrible. 
Death was nothing to this — to look on his dead body 
would have been nothing compared to this ! 

My maid came in and said '"Madam, it is getting 
very late, will you not go to bed ? You will not be able 
to travel to-morrow if you do not rest.” 

" I do not think I can sleep, ” I said to her. ' ' Get me 
some chloral, and then I will go to bed. There is some 
in the medicine-chest.” 

She got it for me, and I succumbed to it easily, I was 
so worn out. Oh, the bliss of those hours of profound 
unconsciousness. Oh, the agony of waking ! Well, 
we all know this, to a greater or lesser extent ; there is 
no need to say more about it. I awoke to the horror of 
a new day. I shut my eyes again. I remembered Ar- 
thur only ; and once more the idea of suicide returned 
'with increased force. "Nothing else will relieve my 
pain,” I said to myself ; I cannot live now. But I must 
get away from here quickly. ” 

I sat up in bed, and was glad to see a travelling dress 


THE CONFESSIONS OF A WOMAN 


209 

put ready for me, and everything in preparation for the 
final touches of packing. I had some tea, and dressed, 
feeling less exhausted than I had expected, but more dead 
in mind than I had supposed any human being could 
be. My central thought was suicide and how to accom- 
plish it. I would see Svenski first, and perhaps talk a 
little to him — he would grieve for me, and help my mind 
a little perhaps. There was nothing else in the future. 
I could never love any human creature again, for I could 
never trust any human creature again. I could never 
work any more, for the interest in my art, which had 
sustained me so far, seemed dead forever. I looked 
round my studio with weariness. I left everything as it 
was — my pictures on the easels — and told the house- 
keeper I was going on a short visit and intended to send 
my maid back from Dover ; that I might send for her 
afterwards to come to me, but was not certain. And 
then I got into the station carriage and drove away from 

my home with a sense of relief. 

14 


210 


THE CONFESSIONS OF A WOMAN 


CHAPTER XXIII. 

We were only just in time for the train. My maid 
went for the tickets, and I followed slowly, for I had 
not strength enough to hurry even if the train were that 
moment starting. 

I was so exhausted that the mere travelling took up all 
my strength. I remained in this stupefied, wearied con- 
dition till I reached Paris where I had to positively rouse 
myself to say what hotel I would go to. I tried to 
remember any hotel I had not been to with Ashton ; 
but I could not, so I told them to take me to UAthenee, 
where I had stayed once or twice when I had been to 
Paris with him. There was one advantage about this. 
I found when I got there the people of the hotel had not 
seen Ashton since I had been there with him, so noth- 
ing was known of my changed position ; while remem- 
bering me personally made them kind to me. 

I went straight to my room and got into bed. I had 
something brought to me — I cannot tell what now — I 
know I ate nothing, but drank a glass of champagne. 
Afterwards I took a dose of chloral I had brought with 
me, and soon fell into a death-like sleep. 

But of course the awakening came. It was gray 
dawn when I opened my eyes ; I shut them and tried 
to relapse into unconsgiousness;, but it was useless, 


THE CONFESSIONS OF A WOMAN 


211 


Everything — all that had happened, came confusedly 
rushing through my brain, so that I was utterly bewil- 
dered. I sat up in bed and tried to take some hold of 
my thoughts. But for a long while it was useless. I 
felt myself alone, away from the scene of action, placed 
like a spectator of what I had myself been enacting, 
and the various scenes came hurriedly before me one 
after the other, as if some one were passing a series of 
pictures before my eyes. I sank back stupefied and 
allowed these visions to harass me in succession, for I 
had indeed no power to prevent it. But at last the suffer- 
ing of this contemplation became unendurable, and I 
rose, put on a wrapper and sitting in a chair by the win- 
dow looked at the gray sky. The heavens have always 
had a powerful hold on my mind ; starry nights excite 
me, but gray morning clouds bring me down to earth 
and plain sad facts. 

I compelled myself to review the events of the last 
few days steadily and without agitation. It became evi- 
dent to me as I considered the awful day — only the day 
before yesterday, though now it seemed a thousand 
years ago — on which my letter to Svenski was written, 
that fate had taken the conduct of affairs entirely out of 
my hands. I candidly own that, when I say fate, I can- 
not explain what I mean by it ; all I know is that some 
force acts in human life which only now and again can 
we overcome ; it cannot be Divine because it is unjust. 
But perhaps some evolutionary force is at work in soci- 
ology and develops not only human lives, but guides 
the intermingling of human affairs — the combination of 


212 


the confessions of a woman. 


certain persons in a certain way to a certain end, of which 
the persons are as completely unaware as are the con- 
stituents in a chemical combination. I cannot say ; 
none can say, for we can only theorize about such mat- 
ters. If we ever do know anything it certainly cannot 
be till we are dead and have escaped this brain-con- 
sciousness, the limitations of which we know only too 
well. And who would desire to ‘‘ dream, ” as Hamlet 
calls it, merely for the solution of such a weary problem 
as the ordering of this life 1 None — those who desire im- 
mortality must certainly desire the repetition through 
eternity of a cherished sensation. But, sitting there 
alone looking at my own history, it seemed to me that a 
blind force, for which I was unprepared, or which was 
stronger than myself, had definitely interfered in my 
affairs. Otherwise why should my sacrifice, my own 
determined and heart-breaking resolve to leave Arthur, 
have been so unavailing, while the result I had intended 
to achieve had been effected by the letter to Svenski, 
which to my mind still appeared aperfectly innocent one .? 
This baffled me ; and at last I had to surrender it and 
bow to that mysterious blind force which interferes in 
human affairs. This which had happened to me I have 
since seen happen to others, and indeed it is almost a cer- 
tainty to be counted on ; what you do intentionally is 
too often ineffectual ; while some mere accident, as it 
seems, accomplishes your aim for you. I am writing of 
all this coolly now, for I know I cannot reproduce the 
fever and anger which consumed me as I thought it out 
then. I did think it out, and thoroughly, but it was in 


THE CONFESSIONS OF A WOMAN 


213 


an agony of mind and body. I will simply give you 
my thoughts now, without considering the fever which 
consumed me ; for I have re-thought them many times 
and never altered my conclusions. 

The past, my husband, Svenski, all were forgotten and 
swallowed up in the last agony that filled the stage of 
my thoughts. Arthur came to the front and occupied my 
mind entirely. I did not require to re-read his letter, 
for I could remember it, word for word. How heartless, 
how cold, how chilly it was ! I had been nothing 
more to him than a passing sensation, intense enough, 
no doubt, but temporary. It seemed so indeed when 
he was so readily made to believe such evidence against 
me. I looked gloomily at his figure, which filled up 
my mind ; there was nothing but despair to be gathered 
from the contemplation of it. My idol had fallen and 
was broken. It was impossible to think of restoring it. 
All was over. 

There came a knock at my door, and my breakfast 
was brought in. I had been thinking for hours, going 
over and over the same ground again and again. I 
crept back into bed, exhausted. I drank some coffee, 
but ate nothing ; and then lay stupefied. For as the 
sun grew high in the heavens and the day became full 
of its usual life and activity I recognized that my place 
was not in the daylight now, or amid the bustle. My 
tired heart 

“ So tired, so tired, my heart and I ! ** 

and my weary head, needed darkness and quiet. I 
passed from phases of acute thought into phases of 


214 CONFESSIONS OF A WOMAN 

dull rest all through that day. The kind landlady got 
anxious and came to see me ; I told her I was tired 
out with travelling, and that she was to keep me alive 
on bouillon and let me rest. I lay for days like this, 
realizing to the full Elizabeth Barrett Browning's per- 
fect ‘‘My Heart and 1." 

“Uncheered, unkissed, my heart and 1.” 

It was not till some days had passed uncounted, un- 
reckoned, that I roused myself to any sense of what I 
was going to do. Then I remembered I was waiting 
for Svenski's reply to me. I gave an order at cnce 
that some one should be sent every day to the Pcste 
Restante to inquire for a letter for me. Then I lay 
with wide-open eyes, trying to stop thinking the old 
thought, trying to fasten my mind on new ones. 
There were only two — that I wanted to tell Svenski my 
sufferings and bid him farewell — and that then I would 
die. 

The comfort that thought gave me, that Death could 
be reached at any moment, that the door was at hand, 
as Epictetus says, for any who suffer beyond endu- 
rance to push open, was the only comfort I had. 


THE CONFESSIONS OF A WOMAN 


215 


CHAPTER XXIV. 

For two or three days the answer was always the 
same ‘‘No letter for you, Madame.” As this letter was 
the only possible event which I had to look for, I got 
nervously restless and anxious about it. It seemed at 
last as if there could be nothing else for me to hope or 
care for but receiving some kind words from Svenski, 
just to ease the misery of my heart. It was quite true 
I had nothing else to hope or care for. But my anxiety 
was augmented by actual fever, which was daily grow- 
ing on me, and I thought of this hoped-for letter every 
moment — partly perhaps because this thought and hope 
kept more terrible ones out of my mind. What a fear-'l 
ful thing it is to lie still and suffer. Action is the only 
thing that soothes the incurable pain of the mind. 
But I was too wretched now even for that cure. If I 
had had my horses waiting at the door, and my 
studio close at hand neither would have tempted or 
interested me. I was literally stricken down. 

At last one day a letter was brought to me. I looked 
at it, scarcely believing it had come at last. Yes — in 
SvenskPs writing : “ Madame Ashton Harcourt, Poste 

Restante, Rue de Choiseul, Paris.” I laid it by my side 
on the bed and looked at it. It was almost too good 
to believe, that a friend had written to me ; that one kind 


2i6 the confessions of a woman 

word was for me out of the cruel world. I revelled in 
the luxury of the thought till at last I could bear this 
dalliance no longer, and seizing the letter opened it 
quickly and read it. Here it is. There was no date, 
no address ; nor any commencement to the letter. It 
read just as it stands here : — 

had come to the conclusion that life here is not 
long or large enough to do more than one kind of thing — 
or even that, well — and that for the rest of my life I 
would attend to wife and children, and let all else go. 
There is peace in that — peace if not happiness — and 
deep thought and emotion, without which life is a 
vacant tumult. The naked intimacy I sought with you 
cannot be realized ; for the mind is not sufficient in a 
world of matter : unless it act by the bodily symbol, 
it is naught, and the symbol is impossible to you and 
me. I always find satisfaction in what is inevitable or 
irrevocable. I wanted to live with you — to be stamped 
in the same die with you, so that we should be as the 
two sides of the same coin, both saying and being the 
same thing by a different sign. If you had come to 
me when the first impulse stirred you, years ago — and 
it was a mutual impulse, though neither of us spoke — 
it would still have been too late, however sweet. Not 
that souls are too limited ; they are too great to unfold 
themselves here, in this pigeon-hole ; here one word is 
spoken, one thing done, and that is all ; often not even 
that : for this is Time, and it is nowhere else. Else- 
where there is space and freedom, and I shall wait for 
that. 

‘‘ I broke the strands, or tried to; I have tied them 
up and shall go on. The mark you made on me re- 
mains : you will recognize me by it, hereafter. I 


THE CONFESSIONS OF A WOMAN. 


217 


would not hasten that day, any more than I would 
retard it. I do not myself know whether I truly love 
you ; but I shall certainly know. If you were here in 
the next room, I would not open the door to come 
to you. But, after death, we shall meet, and know 
whether we thought right or amiss. 

“We both have made a failure of it here; I am 
resolved that the failure shall not be perpetuated by 
trying, here, to arrange the string of it. 

“Let it all go, in God’s name. There are in me, and 
in you, infinite depths of passion and energy ; enough 
to move a world or populate it. Let us keep them till 
they can have full exercise, not mortgage them by 
miserable partial efforts. This is my heart ; I tell it to 
you only. I care no longer for my work, because what 
I care for can never be expressed. 

“Good-bye till we meet again, with our eyes open 
and our hands free. I am nearer to you, though you 
do not perceive it, than if we were together. 

It was unsigned. I have copied it out now, word for 
word, from the original letter, written in a delicate 
hand, in violet ink, on rough paper. Svenski is alive, 
and working, he will hear of my death (for I am near 
death while I write) and he may read this book. I 
hope he will, for he will perhaps see this letter differ- 
ently in the light in which I now present it to him. 
What a letter to write to a broken-hearted woman, who 
had asked only for friendship — a little friendship — to a 
woman too, who was without faith and had no belief 
or hope in any hereafter. All these fanciful words of 
his jangled in my mind and were meaningless. The 
only sentence I grasped was “In God's name let it all 


2i8 the confessions of a woman 

go/* Did he think I had claimed anything — that I had 
asked for his love ? Oh, it was unbearable. I dropped 
the letter and sat up in bed, trying to steady myself 
under the blow. It was useless ; I had borne all I 
could bear. I fell back unconscious. It was night 
when for a moment I woke again to some sort of con- 
sciousness, aware that I was talking, but unable to tell 
what I was talking about. ^ A Sister of Mercy sat by 
my bedside and there was something tight and pain- 
ful round my burning head. Mercifully, conscious- 
ness left me again immediately. 


THE CONFESSIONS OF A WOMAN. 


2ig 


. CHAPTER XXV. 

Why did they keep me alive ? I have never been able 
to understand why I should have been saved from death 
or why it should have been looked upon as a mercy and 
a blessed miracle. I was saved from ‘‘ easeful death ” 
only to search out death in all its utmost bitterness. 

When consciousness came back to me I saw bending 
over me a beautiful woman whom I fancied I recog- 
nized. She uttered a slight exclamation and immedi- 
ately two persons (the doctor and the nurse) joined her 
and looked at me. They all seemed very satisfied and 
smiled at me. Vaguely cheered by this, I went to sleep 
and slept for many hours. I was much more sensible 
when I awoke again. The beautiful woman was still 
in the room, or rather she had returned, for I noticed 
that her dress was different. She was a most exquisite 
creature, a perfect Parisienne of the best type in appear- 
ance, with a superb figure, a great deal of delicate blond 
hair, waved to the roots, and a face which filled my 
slowly returning intelligence with interest. Certainly 
I had seen her, I knew her ; but the effort to remember 
who she was was too great. It was a perfectly formed 
face, the profile Greek, delicately chiselled and colored 
with the softness of a flower-petal. There was no youth 
in it, except in the clear eyes, bright as a girPs. When 
I first looked at her she was sitting quietly, thinking ; 


2 20 


THE CONFESSIONS OF A WOMAN. 


and I saw that she was much older than myself, though 
she was free from the marks which emotion and thought 
had made on me. She may have been ten years older 
— or fifteen ; — I do not know. She looked up and met 
my eyes and smiled such a sweet smile — a smile that 
made me want to kiss her mouth. She approached me 
softly. ‘‘You are better,” she said. 

“Who are you was my answer. 

“Don’t you know.? Madame Sandeau. Surely you 
remember now — my husband and his studio, and the 
pleasant visits you paid us when you were in Paris 
before? ” 

“ Oh, yes, I remember now,” and so I did. Sandeau 
was a great French artist, and this beautiful creature 
was his wife. 

“ But how did you know I was here ? ” I asked. 

“Oh,” she said with her lovely soft laugh. “That 
is easily explained. The hotel people got frightened 
when they found you were so ill, and they remembered 
our calling on you here ; so they sent to us. It was very 
sensible of them ; and we were so glad, for it was 
dreadful to think of your being here alone.” 

The tears came into my eyes at the kind tone in 
which she spoke and her friendliness. I was too weak 
to speak again, but I could think a little. I was glad it 
was Sandeau who had been sent for, as I knew Sandeau 
had been over to London to see my picture, and had 
heard all the scandal there was to hear, so that there 
would be no mistake made — about my relations with 
my husband. 


THE CONFESSIONS OF A WOMAN. 


221 


I will pass over my weeks of convalescence as lightly 
as I can. They were cheered by Madame Sandeau s 
frequent visits, and, when I was a little stronger, by 
Sandeau's. He revealed to me casually what struck 
me as a most remarkable fact. From an artist's point 
of view he looked upon my life as a most precious thing, 
and considered that he and his wife had been unutter- 
ably blest in being allowed to help me. Also the French 
artistic community was only awaiting my further recov- 
ery to accord me an ovation, and welcome me as a great 
worker. I looked mildly at him when he let these things 
f^ill — all as a matter of course, not to please me — and 
wondered within myself what it all meant. For it did 
not appear to me that he was talking to me about my- 
self at all. With returning mental power I only saw 
more plainly how utterly I was wrecked ; and I knew 
that an artist can never do the fine work which makes 
him great without love to feed the spirit on. And Love 
was not. 

The blank of weakness gradually passed away from 
my mind, and the recollection of the past returned to 
me. There were no stings in it now ; no bitter pangs. 
It all assumed an equal appearance ; it all seemed 
equally distant. I regarded the figures of Ashton Har- 
court and Arthur Merrion as I should those of two men 
who stood at equal distances from me on a stage. It 
had all been one long, bitter lesson ; and now I had 
learned it to the full. I blame no one, in looking back ; 
I saw that all the actors in my life had acted simply 
according to their lights. I had no feeling of anger or 


222 


THE CONFESSIONS OF A WOMAN, 


disdain. For I recognized now that there is no such 
thing as virtue, or right, or truth ; these things are rill 
merely relative ; and to quote a phrase which is more 
often used than understood, you have to consult the 
map on the subject. A man is hanged in one part of 
the world for a deed that would bring him a decoration 
on the other side of the globe. Or, even on the same 
side of the world, if the deed is done in the right way 
and for political reasons, it will be paid for by decora- 
tion or a title. I recognized all this, and that there is 
no standard to live up to, for there is no standard but 
what is a mere personal support and comfort, liable to 
be swept away at any moment. 

I had leaned, through bitter troubles, on the ideas of 
virtue and self-respect as part of myself. They were 
swept away. I had clung passionately to the idea of 
goodness in others. That was swept away. I knew I 
should never trouble to look for it again. What was left 

I probed my mind and found no hope. There are 
pessimists of the schools, men who have simply read 
pessimism and been unable to find an answer for it ; 
these are theoretic pessimists who produce new forms 
of this hopeless creed. But they all take pleasure in 
their own fancies ; and I have met well-known pes- 
simists who interested me not at all, because I could see 
at once that wine, woman, and song had still a mean- 
ing for them ; and indeed most of them are refined and 
admirable epicures. 

I had become a pessimist from experience ; that kind 
of pessimist who is indeed lost in the deep abyss of the 
knowledge, as a fact, that there js no hope. 


THE CONFESSIONS OF A WOMAN. 


223 

Death — that became my one idea. I was a fixed 
and resolute suicide. With what object should I live? 
For even if sensation should return, it would cease ; if 
love came, it would go ; if faith came, it would be de- 
stroyed. To a true pessimist there is no more terrible 
thought than that of continuing life till age drives one 
into the barrenness of sensation. 

My mind became fixed in its gloom, and nothing 
shook it ; nothing could. All the great artists called 
and left their cards on me ; for I would see no one but 
the Sandeaus, to whom I dared not show my bitterness 
of heart, they were so kind. I laid aside these cards, 
inscribed with great names which did me honor ; laid 
them aside without interest. For, after all, what is the 
use of work? Does Art or Literature, or Poetry, or 
Music improve the world. Are we better for these 
things, or are they merely sensuous pleasure. The last 
is what I say ; but of course I do not expect my reader 
to agree with me unless he too has lived with the emo- 
tions and the brain and suffered to the full. Many 
people are born, and go through existence, and die, and 
know nothing of life, or of human nature, and think 
nothing about the great issues which can alone give 
life any meaning. It is not for them that I tell my 
burden of sad sayings. 

I read Svenski's letter again, and it roused no emo- 
tion in me. lie was dead, so far as any feeling in me 
was concerned. No doubt, I thought, he was quita 
right in all he said and did, and that he was acting 
up to his own standard. But I could not blind my- 


224 


THE CONFESSIONS OF A WOMAN. 


self to the selfishness which lay between those lines. 
His wife and children, and his thought for them, with- 
out which life was as a vacant tumult — where was my 
husband, where were my children, who should bring 
me peace and deep thought and emotion. Had he 
thought of all this, or of me, when he wrote ? No, 
only of himself. 

Well, it was pleasant to think he had consolations at 
the moment; and a hereafter, constructed according to 
his own desires and for their gratification, to look for- 
ward to. For me there was no illusion about it ; I knew 
very well that no one can show us any light beyond 
the grave. The Spiritualists only play upon a myste- 
rious force in nature and manipulate it according to their 
wishes. 

I put Svenski s letter away, and thought no more of 
it, till just now when I copied it out. He had said 
Good-bye ; there was nothing for me to do but say 
Good-bye. Besides, now that he had shown himself 
to me, I no more wished to think of him or meet him 
than any of the others. The whole folly was at an end. 
My mind at last became concentrated on one idea 
only — how to commit suicide, effectually, instantly, 
certainly, and in such a manner that it should annoy no 
one, nor cause any excitement. I turned this over in 
my mind incessantly. Eventually I decided to ask 
Madame Sandeau to find me a studio, which she could 
do easily, as she knew Paris so well. I must leave the 
hotel and find some quiet place. I laid out my plans 
all carefully, and led Madame Sandeau very innocently 


THE CONFESSIONS OF A WOMAN. 


225 

to do all I wanted. She found me, in an obscure street, 
a house, with a large, dreary studio attached to it. This 
studio had three doors in it ; one into the house ; one 
into a dismal little garden, dank, and with some broken 
statues in it ; the third opening into the street, for 
the admission of models. The house and studio were 
both raised a little from the dampness of the ground, 
and to reach the door of either it was necessary to 
ascend a flight of stone steps. This seemed to shut out 
the whole place from the world, for the passer-by could 
not see into any of the windows of the house. The 
studio had only its sky-light. There are many such 
studios in Paris, but I was quite charmed to find one 
which suited my purpose so well. I furiiished the 
house and engaged a couple of servants ; fitted up my 
studio, engaged a model and commenced a study. I 
was determined to die by what would appear to be 
an accident, and all these arrangements were^iecessary 
to my success. They gave me little trouble^- as I had 
plenty of money, and I had Madame Sandeau, who 
found it amusing to help me. In a very short time I 
had accomplished all I could for the moment ; had left 
the hotel, was established in my own house, and at 
work for a little while every day at my easel. That I 
did not do much was easily accounted for by my so 
recent illness. 

But now it was impossible for me to remain in 
obscurity. The Sandeaus told people that I was prac- 
tically recovered, and I could not remain in absolute 
seclusion without appearing an ingrate or a poseuse. I 

^5 


2 26 the confessions of a woman 

had not sufficient interest even in preserving my soli- 
tude to be very obstinate ; so when one day Madame 
Sandeau implored me to attend a great evening party 
which was to be given in her husband's immense atelier 
in the Boulevard Clichy, and I saw that I should annoy 
her by refusing, I yielded. For the first time the trunks 
which contained my evening dresses were unlocked, 
and I submitted to the weariness of making a toilette. 

My longhair had been cut off, and now I had nothing 
but a loose growth of curls which not even a French hair- 
dresser would have attempted to arrange. I was whiter 
and thinner than ever ; my face and neck perfectly 
waxen in effect, with blue veins lying on my neck as if 
I had traced them there with my brush. My eyes had 
a most extraordinary appearance — they seemed larger 
than ever because I was so thin ; but the peculiarity 
about them w’as a look of inturned concentration, of 
absorbed abstraction. I had never troubled to look at 
myself till now, since my illness ; but when I was 
dressed I was curious to see what I looked like, and so 
I reviewed myself in a long glass. I wore my favorite 
material, the gray-white Bartolozzi satin, and with some 
reluctance and hesitation put on a necklace of pearls, 
three rows of pearls of the same tint as the satin, with 
a great black pearl as the pendant. I hesitated because 
it did not seemed natural to deck myself; but I knew 
the Sandeaus would be best pleased if I really made a 
toilette in their honor. And after all, thought I, there 
is no reason why a corpse should not have a good 
shroud 1 


THE CONFESSIONS OF A WOMAN 


227 


CHAPTER XXVL 

I ARRIVED at the Sandeau’s house, and was dimly pleased 
with the air of gaiety which pervaded the whole estab- 
lishment right out on to the pavement and into the street. 
The house and studio were brilliantly lit ; every corner 
was decorated with flowers and foliage, or rich barbaric 
materials. I need not attempt to describe it further ; 
Sandeau had been busy using his genius on producing 
an effect for days past. The great studio was glorious ; 
and the brilliant crowd which thronged under the tall 
palms gave the life which made the whole fantastic scene 
superb. I enjoyed looking at it, in a faint, far-off way 
as if I belonged to another world. Madame Sandeau 
was looking exquisite in one of those marvellous aerial 
toilettes which these blonde, delicate women only can 
wear. She was a dream of beauty and fair softness. I 
whispered to her to let me sit idly in a shadowy corner 
and watch the people. She humored me a while, and 
then came to me and said ; “ I do not know what to do. 
All the artists want to be introduced to you. Do let me 
bring one or two. '' Of course I could not refuse, and 
she did. I was soon surrounded by a little crowd, and 
engaged in that talk peculiar to artists, and which inter- 
ests no one but artists. I tried very hard to simulate the 
interest I used to feel in color and form and technique ; 
I knew my interest was a corpse, but surely I could 


228 the confessions of a woman. 

galvanize it and make it do. I think I succeeded, for 
everyone seemed pleased. But I am cynic enough to 
know that people are usually pleased with what they 
say themselves, not with what other people say ; so that 
I had only to be gracious and let these garrulous French- 
men out-Herod themselves for my benefit, and of course 
they were content and thought me charming. For my- 
self I was interested in scrutinizing a person whom I 
had discovered to be covertly scrutinizing me. His ap- 
pearance attracted my attention. He was a young man, 
perhaps twenty or twenty-one years old. He was tall, 
but stooped as if from a habit of constantly leaning for- 
ward ; he was very thin, and had several nervous move- 
ments which incessantly recurred, and which had first 
attracted my attention to him. They gave me the idea 
that he was in constant pain ; but I concluded after 
studying his face that it was distress of mind, not body, 
that he suffered from. His head was a remarkable one, 
and I immediately thought to myself he was the very 
model I needed for a picture I had it in my mind to paint. 
It was the head of a Murillo ; but the rich swarthy cheek 
had paled and shrunken, and the black passionate eyes 
had lost their fire. The hair, thrown back and worn 
rather long for a man, was blue-black, streaked with 
occasional white hairs. The face was perfectly hairless ; 
the mouth had once been full and shaped like a Cupid's 
bow ; but it was drawn now, it had thinned and become 
set in strange cynical lines. 

When I had an opportunity I asked Madame San- 
deau who this was. He is not an artist," I said, 


THE CONFESSIONS OF A WOMAN 


229 


She looked across at him and laughed lightly. 

‘‘What, Raphael Maurivaux? An artist ! No indeed. 
He never does anything. Three years ago Raphael was 
the prettiest boy in all Paris. There is nothing else to 
say about him.” 

“Do you think he would sit for me ? ” I asked, with 
a fair simulation of interest. “That head and figure is 
just what I am wanting.” 

“Raphael sit for you? Why, of course. He has, 
nothing to do.” 

She crossed over and spoke to him. When she ad- 
dressed him it seemed to me that he shot a glance, 
composed of dark suspicion and of hatred, at her. 
Then he rose, gloomily, and without a smile, and 
followed her back to me. She introduced him and left 
us — throwing back these words : “ Remember, to sit 
for Madame Harcourt is a great honor.” 

“ Madame Sandeau does not forget that I know 
nothing of art,” he said. “I am absolutely ignorant on 
the subject, and it bores me. I was told that you were 
a great artist, and duly instructed to look at you well, 
and, if possible, to obtain an introduction. You see 
fortune has favored me.” 

“No, not fortune; myself. I asked Madame San- 
deau to bring you to me because your face interested 
me so much. You see I am very candid.” 

He shot the same glance of suspicion at me that he 
had given Madame Sandeau. 

“It is really not worth while to be anything else 
with me,” he said, After a moment he added : “The 


THE CONFESSIONS OF A WOMAN. 


230 

hour has come when Madame Sandeau allows cigarettes 
in the studio. I am sorry to say cigars are not per- 
mitted till later on still. But do you mind my smoking 
a cigarette } ** 

I answered by a gesture. 

He took out his cigarette case — hesitated — and held 
it towards me. 

Do you smoke } he asked. 

‘‘No,” I said. 

“Thank God,” I heard him say under his breath as 
he lit his cigarette. That simple exclamation quite 
interested me, and I began to study him. He had 
thrown himself back in a large lounge, with an air of 
languor that was womanish (though nothing about 
him was effeminate) and smoked for some time in 
silence. I sat back, idly watching the passing crowd. 

Suddenly he turned round and looked at me full. 
“ I suppose you think I have no manners, because I do 
not commence to chatter at once like those men you 
have been talking to ? ” 

“No, indeed,” I replied. “I like a silent com- 
panion.” I answered his gaze, and saw that his eyes, 
as well as his hair, had blue beneath the black. What 
a color to paint ! 

“I like to hear you say that,” he said, “ for there is 
really nothing worth talking about.” 

“Nothing,” I answered simply. 

“Good,” he exclaimed. “I believed and hoped 
you would answer that. In spite of being an artist 
you are a fatalist, a cynic, a pessimist.” 


THE CONFESSIONS OF A WOMAN 


231 


*‘You observe quickly/’ I replied. 

Certainly; I have devoted much of my time to 
studying people.” 

“Your time has not been a long one,” I said. 

“No,’^ he answered slowly, and then added, “but I 
have lived. There is nothing left for me to know.” 

“And yet Madame Sandeau told me you did noth- 
ing.” 

“Very likely,” he said ; and then I saw how he got 
his peculiar stoop. When anything annoyed him he 
leaned forward, his elbows on his knees. On this 
occasion he threw himself back again in a moment, 
and, turned his eyes, which now seemed to be a dif- 
ferent color, on me. “That,” he said, “is because 
what I do now is a thing she is incapable of, and there- 
fore very naturally she does not believe it possible.” 

“And what is that?” I asked. 

“ Thinking.” 

“Oh, that is a fatal, a disastrous occupation,” I 
replied, “if you intend to do anything else in the 
world.” 

“ I do not.” 

“You are too young to think,” I said. 

He answered in a singularly gentle tone : 

“No — other men have thought, and died while mere 
boys, like myself.” 

“But you are not going to die,” I said quickly, look- 
ing with a different kind of attention at his attenuated 
frame. 

“ Is it possible to think and then live on to old age ? ” 


252 


THE CONFESSIONS OF A WOMAN. 


He looked at the smoke of his cigarette as he asked 
this question. 

“It is not possible/' I replied. He turned quickly 
and looked full at me. 

“May I make a venture?" he asked in his gentle 
voice. “ I do not want to risk offending you." 

“You cannot offend me," I said, in the emotionless 
tone which carries conviction. 

“Then tell me," he asked, after a little pause, “ if I 
am right. Fou have thought, and^d?« know that it is 
not possible to think and live ? " 

“Certainly," I replied, in the same tone. I let my 
head fall back and my mind wandered away over the 
bitter waste of thought which was always there — some- 
times I could put it back from my consciousness for a 
moment, but almost immediately it would return, as 
now — more acrid, more acrid, more intolerable than 
ever. 

Presently I was roused by a light touch on my dress. 
M. Maurivaux had taken my fan and was trying to at- 
tract my attention with it. He was regarding me very 
earnestly with those wonderful eyes of his, and he was 
smiling — that instantly attracted my attention. The 
smile reminded me a little of Madame Sandeau's ; but it 
far surpassed hers ; it was sweetness itself, and gave 
his face a sudden brilliant beauty. 

“ Don't doit now," he said in the most subtly gentle 
voice. 

“ Don't do what ?." I inquired, surprised. 

“ Think,” he answered. 


THE CONFESSIONS OF A WOMAN. 


233 


‘‘Why not? ” 

“Well, I am here now. We both think all the rest 
of the time. Don't think when we are together.” 

There was something perfectly captivating in the way 
he said this. I burst out laughing — and then stopped 
suddenly. Why, how long was it since I had been 
amused like this, and laughed? 

“ Do laugh,” said M. Mauri vaux, the smile fading from 
his own face as he spoke. “It is the best thing to do, 
to laugh all the time till one dies.” He threw away his 
cigarette end and rose with a gesture of utter weariness. 
He was going away, I think, without saying anything 
more, when his eyes fell on me, and he paused. 

“ May I come and see you to-morrow ? ” he said. 

“Yes,” I answered. “Certainly. I want you to sit 
for me.” 

“Oh, yes,” he replied indifferently. “Good-bye.” 

And he disappeared in the crowd. 


234 


THE CONFESSIONS OF A WOMAN. 


CHAPTER XXVII. 

M.Maurivaux came early the next afternoon. I was 
in my studio, sitting on a wide, deep lounge which stood 
right across in front of the large fireplace. I had my 
table close to me and was busy with some little affairs ; 
I had one or two notes to write. It is sitting on that 
lounge, at that table, that I have written out this record. 
Indeed, from this moment my time seems to have been 
passed in this room. A whole history of feeling has 
been enacted here. 

M. Maurivaux, seeing I was occupied, threw himself 
into a chair and asked if he might smoke. I said ‘‘Yes, 
of course,"' and seeing he was not in the humor for talk- 
ing, went on with my work. He took no notice of me 
but stared before him, lit his cigarette mechanically, 
and then relapsed into his favorite attitude, his elbows 
on his knees, his back bowed, his head bent forward. 
Very quietly, and without attracting his attention, I left 
the lounge and went behind it to an easel on which I 
had prepared a canvas. In a very few minutes I had a 
slight sketch of his figure outlined. Just as I had got as 
much as I wanted he looked up at me. 

“ So you’re at work," he said. “ I wonder what you 
are going to do with me. " 

“ I won’t worry you," I answered, Whenever you 


THE CONFESSIONS OF A WOMAN. 


235 


fall into that position I will go on with this sketch if you 
don't mind." 

“Not at all," he said. “I very frequently fall into it. 
It's a bad habit — a bad habit, born of thinking too hard. " 
He threw himself back — it seemed to me as if these two 
positions were the only endurable ones to him — and 
looked at me earnestly. 

“ May I say what I like ? " he asked. 

“ Certainly," I answered, “just what you like.^' 

“ And you won’t be offended? " 

“Wait till you know me better, and you will find I 
am not readily offended. " 

“No, that's true," he said. “You don't seem to have 
the smaller vanities of women. I suppose that is 
because you are an artist. " 

“Very likely," I said in rather an absent manner, 
for by now he had relapsed into the posture I wanted 
and I went back to work. He was watching me in the 
curious, suspicious manner I had noticed him before, but 
he did not seem to concern himself with what I was 
doing. The fact was we were each at work, studying 
each other in different ways. 

“Well," he said, with a singularly frank manner — 
one that always pleased and interested me, and yet I 
never could tell whether it was genuine or assumed — 
“I called you a cynic and a pessimist last night and 
you did not seem to resent it." 

“ Certainly not," I replied. “I am both.” 

“ I should like to know if I'm right about something 
else I see in you. May I ask ? ” 


236 the confessions of a woman 

“Of course/' 

“ Have you not decided upon suicide ? " I looked at 
him quickly ; he smiled that fascinating, marvellous 
smile of his. I put down my brushes and, coming 
round the lounge, sat down near him. 

“What made you think that ? " I asked. 

“Oh, I cannot explain. But Tm right, am I not?" 

“Yes." 

“That's what drew me to you. It's a point of sym- 
pathy." 

“Why, have you the same idea?" 

“Of course 1 " he exclaimed vehemently. “ Didn't I 
tell you that it is impossible to think and live." He rose 
restlessly, to throw his cigarette end on the hearth, and 
lit another. As he did so I noticed a curious ring on 
his finger. It was the most slender thread of silver 
twisted round and round the finger, like a snake's body, 
and with an exquisitely finished serpent's head and tail. 

“That is a curious ring," I said. “It interests me. 
May I look at it ? " 

“ I can't take it off," he said holding his hand out to 
me — a brown hand, but so exquisitely formed! — “I 
never have, since I first put it on." 

“Are these rings a fashion now ? " I asked. “For I 
remember noticing one on Madame Sandeau's hand, and 
it interested me like this does, for it fitted in with a fancy 
of mine. Can I buy one ? " 

“No," he said roughly ; and he drew his hand back. 
“They are not the fashion. Mine was made for me." 

“Well, I suppose I can have one made if I have a 


THE CONFESSIONS OF A WOMAN. 


237 


pattern. I will ask Madame San deau to lend me hers.'" 
don't think she will," he said with a laugh. 

What's your interest in the ring } " 

am interested in serpents," I said. ‘‘And I would 
like a ring like that to wear. Shall I tell you in what 
character I want to paint you } " 

“ Yes," he said ; with no interest, however. 

“As a serpent-tamer, surrounded by them." 

“ By Jove ! " he exclaimed ! “you're an extraordinary 
woman. Whatever made you think of that.'^ I've lived 
among serpents, but they got the better of me." 

“ Perhaps they will in the picture." 

“You have an object in painting this picture ? " 

“Yes — it is the last one I shall ever paint." 

“ There is a meaning in it } " 

“ Yes — of course." 

He was roused to some kind of interest himself now, 
and stood watching me with a curious, covert look that 
I frequently noticed in him ; not the glance of keen sus- 
picion, but the look of habitual doubt. Suddenly this 
cleared off his face, and his eyes assumed the wide-open, 
straightforward gaze which made them sometimes so 
charming. 

“You have lived," he said, “ and your heart has been 
broken by men." 

“Yes," I said, “that is true." 

“Well, I have lived, and intensely; I have lived 
everything out, till I am a mere corpse. And my heart 
has been broken by women." 

“I can believe it," I said. 


“ Human nature is bad 


238 the confessions of a woman 

all through, and there seems to be a war between the 
sexes always going on, as if two nations which hated 
each other were closely intermixed. It seems, from 
what one reads, to have always been so ; and I suppose 
it always will be. There is nothing to live for. But 
you — you are so young — you will recover.'' 

‘'Young ! " and he laughed — a laugh that made me 
shudder. “Yes, I must seem a boy to you ; but I am 
an old man. He that has known a Faustine never again 
knows youth. Curse all women — yes — all — don't look 
at me with those clear eyes. It was a crime for women 
to be created. You make me want to kiss that mouth of 
yours, so innocent in spite of the misery on it. What 
is the use? None. Curse you.’' 

He snatched up his hat, crossed to the studio door, 
went out, and I listened to him descending the stone steps 
and ascending the stony street. I sat and thought of 
him ; and knew his misery to be as deep and hopeless 
as my own. 

The next day he came earlier. He entered by the 
studio door and found me at work, filling in my sketch. 

“Is it permitted to come and go in this unceremo- 
nious manner ? " he asked. 

“Oh, yes," I said lightly, “the models always do." 

“ Come and sit down here and talk a little while,'’ he 
said, sitting down on the lounge. When he asked things 
like this there was something so pleading in his mannei 
that I never stayed to think, but did what he wanted, as 
I should for a child that begged a favor of me. I put 
down my brushes and went and sat beside him. 


THE CONFESSIONS OF A WOMAN. 


239 


‘‘What is it ? I asked. 

“ Oh, I can't tell yet. Tve no power to decide what 
ril say, I depend on your mood and on mine. But 
there are things I want to say. I may smoke ? ” 

“Don't ask me any more," I said, “You always 
can." 

“Well," he said morosely, “when I meet with a 
lady and a good woman I like to treat her as one." 

I laughed bitterly at the idea his words suggested. 

“I am not generally considered a good woman." 

“I know that," he said, still speaking in the same 
morose tone ; “it was that which interested me in you 
first. I should never have troubled my head to look at 
a great artist or a beautiful woman. But I heard you 
were the most vicious woman that ever lived ; your 
reputation is quite awful. I thought the combination 
might be something new. Well, I have found some- 
thing new, but not what I expected. It just shows 
what fools men and women are. They don't know any- 
thing — that's what I complain of — they don't think. As 
for women — faugh ! — oh, don't mistake me—^you^re not 
one of them. I was using the word in the ordinary 
sense. You are a good woman, as I said, and such 
beings are rare. Won't you put your hand in mine ? 
We're both dead, it won't make any difference, you 
know." 

“Oh, no," I replied, “it won't make any difference," 
and I put my hand in his. 

“Ah, that's nice," he said, and leaning back he went 
on smoking and relapsed into a reverie. 


240 THE CONFESSIONS OF A WOMAN, 

As forme I, too, was busy thinking. What a strange 
companion I had chanced on ; and yet how completely 
I was at home with him — -more so than with anyone 
else I had ever known. His fantastic changes of mood, 
his way of ignoring all trifling subjects of conversa- 
tion, and talking only of what he really felt, suited and 
pleased me. A kind of dim content stole over me as I 
sat there. 

“ When he whom I love travels with me, or sits a long while hold- 
ing me by the hand, 

I walk or sit indifferent — I am satisfied — 


What possessed me to think of those lines ? Was I mad } 
They recalled the past. I attempted to get up. But 
Raphael held my hand closer with a pressure exhibiting 
no strength, but a subtlety of touch which was far more 
irresistible than strength, ‘‘Don’t go yet — don’t spoil 
this moment ! ” he said. 

He turned his head towards me, supporting it on the 
back of the couch. 

‘‘Will you let me kiss you .? ” he asked. 

I shook my head. 

“No,” I answered, “it is foolish.” 

He turned his head away and went on smoking. 
Presently he started up suddenly and spoke in the 
wildest manner : 

“ I believe you could save my soul ! ” he exclaimed, 
“if it were not sold — if it were not sold! Oh, why 
didn't we meet before ? If there is a Creator, curse 
him I ” 


THE CONFESSIONS OF A WOMAN. 241 

And so saying he went away. After sitting a long 
time, thinking about him, I went back to my easel and 
tried to touch in something of the strange look in his 
face which I desired for my serpent-tamer. 

16 


242 


THE CONFESSIONS OF A WOMAN 


CHAPTER XXVIII. 

The next day he really gave me a sitting. He came 
in morose, dropped into the right chair, and began to 
smoke steadily, in the attitude I wanted. I painted 
away steadily, without even exchanging a word with 
him. I did a splendid hour's work and then, tired, put 
down my brushes. Then he rose and sat on the lounge. 
‘‘ Come and talk," he said. 

I came and sat beside him, glad to rest. 

‘‘This sitting business is very good for me," he said 
“ for I can come without apology. And once having 
seen you I couldn't help hanging round you half the 
day." 

Nothing came into my mind to say, so I sat silent. 

Presently he turned his head and looked at me. 

“I need not stand on ceremony with you," he said. 
“You are not quite like the rest. I want to tell you 
something. I was awake all night, thinking of it. I am 
in love with you. I get worse every time I see you ; 
I get worse still when I am away from you — then I 
think I must go mad. Do let me be here all the time I 
can. I swear to you I am frightened when I am away." 

“Why are you frightened " I asked. 

“My God, I cannot tell you, and you cannot guess. 
But you will, I think. Don't you see I am a wreck, a 


THE CONFESSIONS OF A WOMAN 


243 

dead thing that should never touch a woman's lips, for I 
am a man no longer — only a dead thing." 

He turned my head towards him and kissed me. When 
his lips first touched mine I felt the hot tears fall on my 
cheeks. But they dried, and no more came. Suddenly 
he broke from me, started up and cried out wildly : 

I am not fit to live ! — I should be in the grave now 
— God ! What folly it is ! No outcome to it — no hope 
— no future. Curse women ! Why did you awaken my 
dead self like this 

And flinging himself back on the lounge the tears 
came again, and he buried his face in his hands. In a 
moment or two he roused himself. 

Crying like a woman ! " he muttered, ‘‘this is what 
I am come to. Better be dead and have done. " He sat 
quite still for a little while, and then sought my hand and 
held it. Presently he began to speak in a very gentle 
tone. 

“ Why was I to meet you } Why couldn't I go to the 
grave with but one idea of a woman and that Faustine 
It is bitter, it is hard." 

“ Why should you go to the grave yet.^^" I asked. 
“There is a great deal left for you." 

“No ! There is nothing ! And besides I am bound — 
fettered ! — you don't know — you can’t imagine. I won- 
der if I will try to tell you something ? " 

“Yes," I said. “It is better sometimes to speak." 

“Let me smoke a cigar then." He lit it, and still 
holding my hand went on speaking with pauses here 
and there. 


244 CONFESSIONS OF A WOMAN 

I have a great desire . . . . I have a longing, greater 
than any other feeling, and yet I have not the complete 
courage .... 1 want death — life has become intoler- 
able — a horror — undesirable — but I cannot go through 
the deed utterly alone .... I am afraid — there is no 
other word for it — oh, if I only knew it meant annihila- 
tion ! But one knows nothing .... Well, I cling to the 
old idea of association strengthening resolution. 

What 1 need above everything in the world now is a 
friend who would understand my object ! a kind friend, 
a true friend, a good woman. I have a devil already, 
to stand by me — a man worse than myself — but he 
makes it the harder. I have sworn with him that I will 
not hesitate when a certain moment comes. Men who 
are dead should not walk the earth too long, we are 
agreed on that. But he is younger than I am — I go first. 

He came and sat down close to me and put his hand 
on my arm. '‘Listen,'’ he said. "I have but a year to 
live ; and I love you. I shall be a coward. Had I not 
better shoot myself to-night } " 

"Oh, no, no ! " I exclaimed. 

We sat there, in the twilight, motionless, paralyzed 
by thought, and wonder, and fear. 

"Will it be eternity or annihilation V I said aloud 
without knowing it. 

"Ah?" he cried out as if in pain. "Why ask these 
foolish questions ! You know there is no answer. And 
I want to live ! I love you and I want to live ! Here — 
or there — what does it matter ? But there is no hope 
— nothing — here or there I Without continuity of sen- 


THE CONFESSIONS OF A WOMAN. 


245 

sation, how can immortality exist? The brain is de- 
stroyed by death — it is all over — continuity is destroyed. 
Better end it — end it at once, so as not to see the horror 
of it any more. Oh, why do you give me this feeling 
again — this longing — this loving ? It is always the same, 
with no satisfaction — only pain — only hunger ! Why 
should I live through this terrible year ? Why ? '' 

‘'Yes, live this year,'' I said ; and then added, won- 
deringly, “what brought you to me ? " 

“As long as you live the miserable and the desperate 
will come to you. The others will never understand 
you. May the rest be spared the torture of loving you. " 

‘ ‘ There will be no risk of that, " I said, ‘ ‘ for my depart- 
ure from this stage is close at hand. I will be what I 
can to you and then go quietly out, like a candle blown 
by the wind. Who is the devil you talk of ? Is he your 
friend ? " 

“My friend! — Yes, indeed; that devil incarnate, 
Alexandre Aurigot I He is capable of nothing but evil. 
He is younger than I am ; but his soul is gone — gone 
utterly — there is only a cynical intellect and a heart- 
less body left." 


246 


THE CONFESSIONS OF A WOMAN. 


CHAPTER XXIX. 

The next day Raphael brought Alexandre Aurigot with 
him. Madame Sandeau had come in the previous even- 
ing for a little while and I asked her who he was. 

Raphael’s great friend ! People say he has ruined 
Raphael, he is so wicked. He has attracted notice 
already as a surgeon, and the great doctors say he will 
be extraordinary. For the rest he is a profligate, as 
complete a roue as his years permit Blase and cynical, 
that's the worst of it I do not like people who talk as 
he does, and as Raphael does now." 

Her beautiful hands were lying in her lap and I looked 
at the serpent ring. 

Lean back and take a moment's rest, Faustine," the 
words came into my mind, and I looked at her lovely 
fair face with its dimples. 

‘‘You don't like M. Maurivaux," I said. 

“Why, yes," she exclaimed. “Of course I do. He 
is a great friend of mind, and I wish him every good 
imaginable. But I wish he would not blaspheme and 
talk the cynical nonsense he does now ; it is nonsense, 
and disagreeable. It annoys me. 

I was thinking of this little conversation when M. 
Aurigot came in with Raphael. He was evidently 
younger, but looked older ; the intense cynicism and 


THE CONFESSIONS OF A WOMAN 


247 

the bitter hardness that sometimes came on Raphael's 
face was fixed upon his. He was clearly j ust as Raphael 
had described him ; soulless. This made him an un- 
redeemable profligate, a relentless creature in pursuit 
of any aim, cruel without knowing it, implacable as a 
natural force. 

All this I saw and thought of, while he spoke. But 
when first he leaned back in silence and let Raphael 
talk, I was chilled suddenly by a new horror which 
filled my mind, so that I heard no word that was said, 
for many minutes. I saw before me the face of my 
terrible dream at the Court — that beardless, boyish face 
filled with cruelty — the face I seemed then in my 
dream, to recognize as familiar, but which I well knew 
now I saw for the first time. This man was in my fate 
— would surely bring my death ! What did these strange 
things mean } Why had I dreamed of Ashton Har- 
court (though I did not love him) and he of me t It was 
inevitable ; the future was fixed ; it was only a flash of 
prevision. Oh, kismet! kismet! what art thou .? And 
what is life, thy toy — and man, a lesser thing still, 
simply the pawns in the game thou playest ! All this 
frenzy of thought swept through me as I sat and gazed 
at this face, so well known, so unknown ! 

Presently I roused myself, by a great effort. I com- 
pelled myself to speak and to make Aurigot talk. Was 
he, as Raphael said, a devil } 

I did not dislike him ; he rather interested me. We 
had a long conversation, Raphael sitting by and smok- 
ing in silence. We had a strange conversation about 


248 the confessions of a woman 

life and death — those words best describe the range of 
the subjects we spoke of. He showed me a black 
chasm which stood in the place of his mind — some 
terrible fire had raged there. His indifferentism was 
something amazing, even to me. I retained a lin- 
gering emotionalism which made me still able to love 
and suffer ; so did Raphael, and that was why he clung 
to me. Aurigot s dark soul, lit by intellectual flashes 
from time to time, as by white electric light was a thing 
he could never escape from, which kept him forcibly 
to his bitterest mood ; but it galled and cut him, I 
could see. And I knew it would gall and cut me, too ; 
but I was prepared for it. I was glad of it. There 
comes a time when we welcome the surgeon's knife. 

I cannot express the rest, the deep mental rest, which I 
gained in my conversations with these two. I no longer 
felt alone in the world. I no longer felt as though I 
had a dreadful secret to carry about with me. Now I 
could openly speak of the pessimism which was wear- 
ing out my heart, of my sick weariness of life, of my 
longing for death and silence. To these men the ideas 
were familiar, from experience. To Aurigot, especially, 
his own mind was horror enough without any other. 
He had thought himself outside of all hope, all illusion, 
all possibility of finding comfort in faith or belief or 
even in withholding judgment." He was not a phil- 
osopher, with a balanced mind ; he was a rebel against 
life and nature, seeing no possibility but the blackest. 

One day I asked him at what age he and Raphael had 
decided to die. He told me, and I said quietly that I 


THE CONFESSIONS OF A WOMAN 


249 

should die at the same age. ‘‘I am glad to have an 
hour fixed in which to depart/' I added. ‘‘There is no 
object in haste or in delay. Now the time is settled 
when the door shall open for me into the darkness." 

Raphael was there, and had listened in silence. They 
went away together, but presently Raphael returned. 
He fixed a strange look on me. “I can't judge a 
woman's age," he said. “ Alexandre says you have not 
a year to live. Is that true " 

“I have only six months," I answered, looking 
steadily at him. It seemed to me too long ! He flung 
himself down on the couch at my side ; he took my 
hands and wetted them with his tears ; he drew me to 
him and kissed me, while I, for the first time, it seemed 
to me, could meet his kisses with the same wild tender- 
ness which prompted them. 

He caressed me — true caresses — not those of mere 
desire — and fondled me till the mingling of love and 
despair had worn him out, and he lay, like one dead, 
his head in my lap, but his hands holding mine in a ten- 
der, nervous grasp. 

“ Don't send me away," he murmured. “Don't ever 
send me away. Let me love you till the end. Oh, 
why did^we not meet sooner } " 

As for me, my heart was bursting, and I could not 
speak. The hunger in me had leaped into life — I had 
found the love Paul Phayre had made me wish to find 
— now, too late, too late, for Love and Death came 
together. Death irrevocable, not in the shape of 


250 THE CONFESSIONS OF A WOMAN 

any vow or pledge, but living death in ourselves. 

“You will let me be with you till the end?'' he said 
again. 

“ Yes ; why should we separate 1 It is suffering, but 
it is better to suffer together than alone." 

“Yes, for poor fools such as we are, with unintelli- 
gible feelings, and hungers of the soul ! How I envy 
Alexandre." Suddenly he rose up and sat beside me ; 
and taking my face between his two hands looked ear- 
nestly at me. Then he spoke, very softly and gently. 

“You are a marvellous woman, to let me love you, 
you who might have all Paris at your feet and a hun- 
dred robust lovers. Ah, my dear one — " 

“Don't call me that," I said, a sudden shuddering 
coming over me. Don't call me any name like that — " 

“ I will not ever—" he said trying to soothe me. 

“Promise me, promise me," I exclaimed, “that 
you will never call me sweetheart or darling — " 

“ No indeed," he said, starting up with a gesture of 
disgust. “Those are names one uses for cocottes — for 
Faustines — Ah ! hateful names — " 

He stopped himself and came back to me and again 
took my face in his hands. 

“ Forget all this," he said ; — “try to, and I will try 
to — -these memories of the past, I mean. Tell me, do 
you love me ? " 

My heart seemed to swell so that I could not bear it. 
I did not know what love is. Surely this was it ! 

“ I think so," I answered. 

He took his hands away and sat gloomily beside me. 


THE CONFESSIONS OF A WOMAN 


251 

‘‘Yes/^ he said sadly/^'tis so hard to know love, to be 
sure that it is love ! '' 

We said no more that night. No later protest could 
repair my doubtful answer, I well knew. And he fell 
into a mood of sadness too deep to be chased away. 
He left me with only a pressure of the hand. My 
heart ached more for him than for myself. Was that 
love? I wish I knew, even now. Yet how he has 
made me quiver with the lightest touch, how the mere 
thought of him has thrilled my whole being a thousand 
times a day ! Is that love? I wish I knew. 

And thus I entered on 

“ The last hour shod with fire from hell.^* 

I remained in my studio, in my house, working or 
idling, as the humor took me. I no longer observed 
the weather or the seasons, or whether people were in 
Paris or in the country. Why should I ? I had no 
interest in these things. A war between Russia and 
England would hardly have roused me. I had reached 
a strange condition ! one that seemed like Death itself — 
and yet I was so happy ! There was no future — nothing 
but the moment I had — the hour I lived in ! Ah, that was 
dear, and, more, it was desirable. Nothing would have 
bribed me to part with it so long as Raphael desired it 
too. His companionship and his love were both as 
often keen pain as keen pleasure ; and it is hard indeed 
to distinguish between these two. For a nature like 
mine this keenness means living. I knew it could not 
last ; I knew that Raphael would kill himself when his 


252 the confessions of a woman 

time came ; that there was nothing but to drink the 
fullness of the moment. It was full to me ; though 
Raphael never understood altogether how I could find 
it so. He had lived among women who demanded so 
much more of him ; and he had never before found one 
who cared for his companionship, his thoughts. One 
night he said to me : ‘‘The women I have lived among 
have been such brutes ! My God ! Look here ! Look 
where one of them shot me. She tried her best to kill 
me. She was like a wild animal. And you — even 
you — would either be tired or jealous if we had years 
before us instead of months.” 

‘‘Perhaps,” I answered. For I knew he was right : 
I knew that change is the one immutable law. 

He was with me as much as he liked ; and that meant 
all the time. I was quite indifferent now as to what 
people said or thought. Everything that could be had 
already been said and thought. A definite and abomi- 
nably scandalous story about myself and Arthur Merrion 
had followed me to Paris ; and doubtless had followed 
him to the chateau in the south of France where he was 
wooing his bride ; and doubtless he would be made to 
suffer severely in the orthodox Catholic circle in which 
he was. How could this be helped } Is it any use to be 
innocent } None. I recognized the uselessness of all 
efforts to right oneself with the world. The one gain 
which really had come to me from the fire I had been 
through was that I had reached a mental altitude in 
which I no longer saw in myself anything to respect. I 
understood that neither one's own standard nor that of 


THE CONFESSIONS OF A WOMAN, 


253 

the world really amounts to anything. I felt them to 
be purely arbitrary. 

Before that change Raphael's unconscious revealing 
of his familiarity with the blackest side of life would 
have offended me; his treatment of me would often 
have hurt me. Now these things roused in me no feel- 
ing as regards myself, for I looked on myself as nothing. 
Circumstances might have made me as depraved as any 
of the creatures whose memory inspired him with hor- 
ror ; I might perhaps have struggled on with a soul already 
in hell, as Raphael himself had done. It is very good 
to know these truths, to know that virtue is not and that 
people are placed in the world just as leaves grow out on 
a tree. Each leaf has a different place, but no place is 
better than another. There are virtuous women who 
look down upon Faustines because they are not virtuous; 
there are many Faustines who look down upon virtuous 
women merely because they are not beautifully dressed. 
The demi-mondaine usually has a mind which has never 
appreciated the idea of virtue, and has been thor- 
oughly trained in the cult of dress ; while chaste women 
who understand dress are quite rare. Does it make 
any difference in the end } Is either really superior 
to the other after all ? No ; for the grave is always 
close at hand, where all differences are smoothed away 
and nothing remains. 

It is the fearful conviction that we really have noth- 
ing but annihilation to hope for that makes life unbear- 
able. Once recognize that nothing else can be proved 
and then all content is, at an end. One night Raphael 


THE CONFESSIONS OF A WOMAN. 


254 

cried out in a sort of horror: ‘‘ Would God I knew 
there is a hell, and that I should go to it ! ” 

For sensation is the one thing we desire, and the con- 
tinuity of sensation the one thing we can bear to look 
forward to. Raphael, already in hell, preferred to 
remain there through eternity rather than be blown out 
like a candle. And he longed for death because the 
constant facing of the thought of coming annihilation 
was unbearable. He clung to me because he had 
this wild, fickle, desperate passion for me ; he could 
sometimes forget the horror of his mind when 
with me and when our association swept thought 
away. 

What strange hours of love we passed together — 
broken in upon by some fierce spasm of despair when 
one or the other would quail before the sudden recollec- 
tion of the truth and cry out to the unhearing Gods ! 
What tears would come, what sad and silent partings 
would take place ! 

One day he came in and sat down and began to 
smoke at once, as, indeed, he generally did. He leaned 
forward, and his coat was buttoned over the light waist- 
coat he wore. I was gay, and the figure seemed too 
unhappy; I wanted to change his mood, since I did 
not want it just then for my canvas. I came to him 
and lightly opened his coat and threw it back. He 
started in horror and alarm. Ah ! '' he cried out, wild- 
ly, ‘‘what arc you going to do? Leave me alone I 
Leave me alone ! '' 


THE CONFESSIONS OF A WOMAN 


255 

Shocked and startled by his manner, I stepped back 
and sat down in a chair at some distance. His old 
dark, suspicious look had come back, though we knew 
each other so well. There was a silence, for neither 
knew what to say ; and the tears came to my eyes. I 
had such a little time left ! It would be terrible to make 
him hate me, and have no companion at the last. I 
said something like this, with the distress of a child, 
and said 1 did not know what I had done. Presently 
he came to me and took my hand in his. 

Forget it,'' he said. ‘‘But remember that I cannot 
always forget. You are the only good woman I have 
ever known except my mother and sister ; and they are 
nothing to a man — why, I know not. You might have 
saved me — we might have made life possible — if we 
had met earlier, before the decay and corruption of the 
heart and mind had set in." 

I was so timid with him after that, fearing by some 
inadvertence to rouse these terrible suspicions in him 
that at last he spoke of it. 

“I don't pretend to understand you," he said, “for 
you are a marvellous woman. But never think again 
that I confuse you with the crowd. It is only my own 
wounds that show themselves sometimes, and which 
startle you." 

There were not many events dunng these strange, 
happy, despairing months, which, as I look back on 
them, seem as if they were the only part of my life 
worth living — a delirium of keen sensation. I wrote 
the first chapter of this history before I had met 


256 • the confessions of a woman 

Raphael. I see that I said there I had never loved any 
man. I have already said that I do not know if I loved 
Raphael. I do know this, that I could not live with- 
out him. And that very fact made me a more resolute 
suicide than ever, though my life with Raphael had 
actually brought back a strange youth and beauty to 
my face! I dared not allow myself to think of his 
leaving me — or of his death. 

I re-furnished the drawing-room in my house, to please 
a fancy of Raphaels. I did anything he liked of this 
sort, giving a kind of sad, reckless gaiety to our phan- 
tasmal honeymoon. I made it into an absolute Turkish 
interior ; and it was a rest to go there from the studio, 
the rooms being so entirely different. Here in the even- 
ings I sometimes received visitors ; the Sandeaus, and 
one or two artists who were rnore sympathetic or more 
determined to know me than the others ; for nothing 
would induce me to go out. I never troubled to consider 
what they might say of Raphael’s constant presence ; I 
let them say what they liked. I was there always, suffi- 
ciently gracious ; looking, as I well knew, more beauti- 
ful than I ever looked in my life, and always perfectly 
dressed. I had a strong feeling that I should die better 
if I kept my full beauty to the end, Raphael often asked 
me if I cared what comments should be made on his 
presence, whether it would be easier for me if he should 
keep away in the evenings. I had always the one com- 
plete answer for him : 

Does anything matter } ” 

My picture was an object of much interest, and one 


THE CONFESSIONS OF A WOMAN 


257 

or two eminent artists begged to visit it several times. I 
painted Raphael as I knew him, and I saw that I had 
put something into the face and figure which arrested 
attention and was not readily criticised. 

To return to the drawing-room — the rest of this history, 
very short now, is enacted in these two rooms — one 
evening when Raphael and I were sitting talking aim- 
lessly yet contentedly, Madame Sandeau came in, bring- 
ing with her a beautiful girl of about sixteen, with an 
olive complexion, great black eyes and a quantity of 
long black hair. Madame Sandeau introduced her to us 
as her niece. Raphael relapsed into a fit of steady smok- 
ing ; the only sociable effort he made was practically 
an insult. He offered Madame Sandeau a cigar. She 
shot a furious glance at him and very soon went away. 

‘‘Will you tell me,'^ I said, “why you drive people 
away like that } '' 

“Will you tell me,'' he retorted, “ why she should lie 
when I am here who know all about her.^^ Neither she 
nor Sandeau have any nieces." 

Madame Sandeau very seldom came after that. I did 
not regret it. We were more alone together ; and that 
was the only pleasure left to either of us. 


THE CONFESSIONS OF A WOMAN. 




CHAPTER XXX. 

The last hour is here. 

Sitting in my dreary, dim studio, I have written all 
the truth ; I have told all that it is possible to tell of my 
days and hours and ways and words of love. Surely 
.the burden of sad sayings should be very near its end, 
and so it is. There are only a few days more. The 
gloom is awful. Raphael is hardly ever with me now. 
He has begun to drink and drown himself in that misera- 
ble forgetfulness ; I do not blame him ; I do not wish 
he were here. Though the gloom is awful, I can bear 
it. I have borne so much I can bear anything. I have 
had the comfort of his society so near the end that surely 
I can face that end alone.? Surely ! 

* * He 

Yesterday Aurigot came in alone. 

‘‘Where is Raphael?'* he said. 

“I do not know," I answered. 

“Do you expect him?" he said, fixing his relentless 
eyes on me. I knew very well what he meant. Was I 
left alone to face the end — that was his query. 

“ I do not," I answered shortly ! And he went away. 

Do not suppose he showed gentleness, sympathy, con- 
sideration in asking me this question. I knew well that 
if Raphael failed to see the deed done, Aurigot would 


THE CONFESSIONS OF A WOMAN 


259 

be there. He believed in death ; he was a suicide- 
maniac. It was his one faith. He would let no friend 
of his fail ! 

The hours go by. I am alone, with my thoughts, 
which start up one by one, like figures, and suddenly 
face me. I look quietly around at them now ; life is 
over ; I am like a piece of driftwood, washed away, 
lost, left. 

On the night of the day I was writing before, Raphael 
came back to me. He was in a terrible state ; no wine 
could cloud his mind — he was almost mad. Every 
moment since then he has been close to me. I soothed 
and calmed him ; and at last the tears came to him and 
he wept over me — and himself — and the whole misery 
— like a child. Then came a day of gloom and silence, 
when we clung together like two beings left alone to 
face shipwreck. Hours of mingled pain and pleasure 
glided by like mocking ghosts, leaving us mute with 
despair. It was well — for the moment there was forget- 
fulness — oblivion. If the pain of knowledge and rec- 
ollection came back more keenly afterwards — what 
matter. And so we clung together till to-day — till this 
evening — for I am in the actual last hour — soon I must 
do the deed. When the clock strikes twelve — but there 
is a little time, and I have yet something to tell my 
reader. 

It was only a little while ago that Raphael went away. 
He never released me from his grasp all this evening. 
Ho clung to me as though the last hour had 
come. We seemed to feel that it must end, it must 


26 o the confessions of a woman. 

go ! But oh, how we clung to it, we that were born with 
feeling. I never knew how Raphael loved me till 
to-night ; I never knew how much I cared for him, much 
though I thought it was. To be blown out like a can- 
dle and leave him ? Yes, it was best ; I knew it all 
the while ; for this must end. Better die myself than see 
love die. Oh, the bitterness of that knowledge, always, 
that it is only for a little while — that change must 
come, must come — that there is naught else ; to know 
the grave ends all — to know ’tis happiest to take arms 
against the sea of troubles and by opposing end them ! 
We have not been speaking ; but I know Raphael too 
has been haunted by thought, even when he seemed 
most oblivious. We could but press each other and so 
find dim comfort. 

Here on this lounge he was by my side, such a little 
while ago. He had not spoken for hours but only 
feasted on me. Suddenly he took me roughly by the 
throat of my dress, raised me and flung me back on the 
lounge sitting upright. He stood and looked at me, 
oh ! the horrible, sinister, maddened look on his face. 

“Curse you ! he exclaimed, “ curse you ! Love is 
an agony, lust a torture. Curse all women ! To love 
you is only to suffer. Yes ! — do not look at me with 
those mysterious eyes of yours. Curse all women — 
all — do you hear me .? '' His eyes glowed and glittered 
like those of the serpents I was using as models for 
my “Snake Charmer.'' Suddenly he bent over me 
and buried his teeth in my neck. I felt no pain and 
sat motionless. Then he laughed — a laugh such as 
one fancies may be heard in hell — and went. Finally 


THE CONFESSIONS OF A WOMAN 26 1 

the striking of the hour roused me. I leaned 
over to the table and wrote what I have written. The 
time is so close now ! shall I have courage ? Oh my 
God ! if it should fail me ! No — I dare not — I dare not 
live on and suffer again. 

How will Raphael die } What does it matter In a 
few moments this woman — this that is thinking — will be 
dead and will think no more of Raphael. Will he think 
of me before he dies? What does it matter? For I 
shall not know. Oh, the blank, the horror, the awful 
blank before me ! 

Will Svenski think more kindly of me when he knows 
I am out of his way ? — and Ashton too ? Will he marry 
Mrs. Herries ? Poor woman ! she was good ! And 
Agatha, so grieved and sad for me, how she will weep 
away in her Scotch home. 

It is now indeed the la«t hour. Oh, the old hours ! 
Oh, the horror of the lights reverse which showed them 
all to me that dreadful last day when I wrote at this 
table. 

Now I am all broken and exhausted from the joy 
and agony of that last hour I have lived, which was 
shod with fire from hell. 

Oh ! what do these things matter, I shall know 
nothing of them. That is the same as if they did not 
exist. Perhaps they do not — perhaps it is all a phan- 
tasy created in the mind. Oh ! the blank, the horror of 
death without faith ! no wonder people live on and 
cling to some sensation — some — however little — how- 
ever painful 1 


262 


THE CONFESSIONS OF A WOMAN 


Ah, the clock is at twelve — I can hear something — a 
step in the stone street — feet coming up the stone stair- 
way — how well I know that even, resolute step ! It is 
Alexandre, the implacable, the demon, the benefactor. 
He comes to see it is done. Good-bye, my reader — 
there is no one else for me to say good-bye to ! 


Extract from London papers of July 27/A, 1889. 

‘‘Immense excitement has been caused in Paris by 
the unfortunate death of our great English artist, Mrs. 
Ashton Harcourt. She was engaged upon a large pict- 
ure for the next Salon which had already, in its half- 
finished condition, excited much interest and admira- 
tion. Yesterday morning she was found dead on the 
couch in her studio. She had procured, as models for 
her picture “The Snake Charmer,'" several serpents 
from which it was supposed the poison sacs had been 
removed. 

Marks upon her neck, however, seem to confirm the 
suspicion that these serpents may have escaped from 
the box in which they were kept during the night, and 
returned to their quarters after inflicting the fatal bites, 
for they were found in their usual places when the at- 
tendants entered the studio yesterday morning. 

The tragic occurrence is exciting much comment, 
and certain inexplicable circumstances attending it have 
led the police to take possession of the house for in- 
vestigation. 


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> ■ ‘ ♦ 0/..y ■*. # 




.ii 






